The Importance of System Administrator Appreciation Day

[Article first published as System Administrator Appreciation Day on Blogcritics.]

Every year on the last Friday in July, nerdkind recognizes System Administrators’ Appreciation Day.  It may sound silly to those of you that have never done the job, but over the years – well to me anyway – I’ve found there’s some legitimate value to it.  Even sites like ThinkGeek celebrate it with sales on techie goodness.  Years ago I wrote a small angry post on “why your IT department hates you,” and its main focus was something I called Social Swiss Army Knife Theory. We can call it SSAKT for short.  That was a long time ago… a time before my writing became the polished gems you know and love today (please, hold your applause and/or laughter).  But trust me the sentiment still stands. Most of the time when we seem angry or bitter, there’s a good reason.

System administrators (and I’m going to lump most tech people in here) get the short end of the corporate stick. Period. And most arguments the rest of you have against that statement are invalid.  Over time society has forcibly relegated the tech crowd from actual human beings to on demand help centers, as if we have some sort of Google engine that runs inside our heads 24/7. Eventually the techs’ names aren’t associated with much else other than solving computer problems, resetting network accounts, replacing parts, or even just executing the most mundane computer tasks for grown adults that a child could do without too much thought.  In short – Swiss Army knives. A multi-tool to do what other folks simply can’t.  And soon, even the formality of a “hello” isn’t even uttered before the onslaught of issues and requests begin.  All urgent.  All with deadlines.  And all expected to be resolved like magic.

So why do admins have the right to be more bitter than all the other departments in the world’s corporate structure?  Respect.  That’s all it boils down to.  Someone will always be there to bug us when something’s not working, or freak out about when something’s going to be fixed, or when that impossible project is going to be done on top of the other things that need to be done.  But when everything’s working great, and problems don’t even show up on users’ radar because the tech team has it well under control before they even know about it, there’s no one there the hold up the “10’s” on the scorecards for them.  And I don’t think that’s fair.  There’s no other team that has to stay on site and work the occasional 24 hour shift just so business can run without issue.  Or drop everything they’re doing on a relaxing Saturday afternoon just to log in or come in and make everything is OK. Or be on the phone for two hour calls on a vacation thousands of miles away.  While you’re comfortable in your bed, your sysadmin could be on the clock.

Sysadmins and techs are responsible for every email you send and receive, every phone call you make, and every aspect of day-to-day business that involves a computer – which let’s face it, is everything. We go out of our way to try and teach people about digital responsibility, viruses and malware to look out for, and just how to stay safe in the digital age.

So today’s for the techs.  Whether you’re just starting out putting together your playbook, been in the game for a while running the show in the enterprise, the tech that does wiring, PBX, Database, Domino, Exchange, AD, Web, or any of the other oh so many custom systems that are out there – I salute you.  Having a career that started as an IT intern as a teenager and ending up in the ranks of project and tech management, I know what kind of nightmare scenarios you’ve been through, and what kinds of hell you’ve been in.  I appreciate what you all do to keep our world spinnin’ round.  Keep up the good work folks.

As for the rest of you – As much as it may seem like it I’m not writing this to admonish you or call you bad people.  I just want you to be aware of how things work.  These techs that probably make your job possible to even do, don’t solve problems with a magic wand.  It takes research, training, practice, and a lot of trial and error to learn things and get things done.  It’s the type of work where the consequence of mistakes is business coming to a grinding halt. And unfortunately there’s far less recognition than what’s deserved.  And we’re not looking for a parade or parties or anything crazy like that.  Just one day out of 365 where maybe you bring up something other than how your computer’s not running right, or just saying hello like we’re normal people.

System Administrator Appreciation Day and the DC Universe [tf charts]

Crazed Hope. Iron Will. Cool Tech.

The way I see it based on how the DC Universe runs - not only what I do but what we all do.  There will of course be a post to follow today on the importance of Sysadmin Day, but for now, to all the professional nerds out there, Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! It's by your work that the digital age is made possible.

And to you non-techs that rely on them, thank your local pro nerd today!

The Son Also Rises [tf charts]

This week's TF Charts is courtesy of Batman and the much anticipated Dark Knight Rises. To everyone seeing Dark Kight Rises tonight, have a good time, and I hope you enjoy it.  Eat a lot of popcorn.

Also, if you spoil it for me, I will destroy you.  I don't have a utility belt.  Or Bruce Wayne money.  But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.  Skills I have acquired over a very long career.  Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.

Mobile Tech Patent Fallout: The Only Winning Move is Not to Play [tf charts]

Today's chart is more of a comparison - 1980's military fiction vs present day mobile tech reality.  I can't even remember what I was looking for online when I stumbled onto a War Games fansite and became nostalgic.  So here's the result.

This morning we learned that Sprint users rocking the Samsung Galaxy S III are without one of their features thanks to an over-the-air security update.  That update removes universal search functionality from their handsets.  This is fallout from Apple's patent lawsuit regarding universal search and their attempts to ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus.  The Nexus is apparently next, as Google and Samsung have reported an upcoming software patch to disable universal search on that model as well.

As I've always asserted, corporate patent wars ultimately hurt paying customers.  This may only be one feature, and maybe there's not a lot of people that use it, but what's next?

DNS Changer Malware and the FBI's July 9th Deadline - A Few Answers

[Article first published as DNS Changer Malware and the FBI's July 9th Deadline: What It Is and What You Should Know on Blogcritics.]

Depending on how close you are to your local nerd, you should have already heard about a computer virus that is claimed to eventually cause thousands of people to lose their internet access in just a few days on July 9th.  Some folks don't even know it's coming, some have waved it off as a hoax, and some have even gone so far as to claim immunity because of course, nothing could penetrate their primitive anti-virus shields, regardless of everything I've been trying to tell them.  At any rate, it's happening.   So what exactly's going on?   The culprit behind this scheduled havoc is a particular class of malware known as DNS Changer.  Before I get into what exactly it's doing, I should give you a short primer DNS and what it does - because after all,  like it's named, DNS Changer changes DNS.

"Phone Numbers for the Web" - A Quick DNS Primer

Think about phone numbers for a second.  Suppose my phone number is (123) 456-7890.  If someone has that phone number written down, and just that phone number, they have no idea who exactly they're calling if they punch it into a phone.  The information they have to contact me over the phone is incomplete.  Now if they have two pieces of information - the phone number and my name to go with it, then that makes far more sense.  Now they know that I'm at the other end of (123) 456-7890.

DNS is exactly the same thing.  Internet websites have what's called an IP address (think phone number for a website).  Now let's make an example.  I'm going to give you an IP address, and you tell me what that address goes to.  Ready? OK, here it is: 173.194.75.103.  Complete gibberish to you?  I'll tell you what.  Take that number and put it into your web browser where you put in what website you want to go to, and tell me if it doesn't take you right to Google.  DNS is what allows your browser to cleanly translate domain names to IP addresses - in this case it matches up 173.194.75.103 to "http://www.google.com."  Just like a phone number.  You don't get out your cell every time you want to call me and dial out (123) 456-7890.  You go to my name.  Your address book, as it turns out, is a mini list of DNS entries, matching numbers to names.

That was just a basic primer, but it gets far more complex than that when it comes to the Internet.  There's not just one DNS server, but many that communicate to allow you to browse the web.  You browse the web primarily using the DNS servers that belong to your Internet Service Provider (Comcast, Verizon, Roadrunner, or whoever you pay your bills to).

What Does DNS Changer Do?

So now that you have a better idea of what DNS is, let's look at what DNS Changer does.  In the end it can do the same thing that email phishing scams can do in the sense that it can lead you to fake and fraudulent websites to try to steer you in the wrong direction.  This works a little bit differently though - instead of sending you fake links hoping that you'll click them without paying attention, DNS Changer literally changes your DNS settings, giving the intruder the ability to change where you go and leave your computer wide open to a number of cyber attacks.  The image to your right is a great concise diagram from the official FBI website that shows how it works.

The FBI has been able to identify networks of these rogue DNS servers that can potentially do you harm through what was known as Operation Ghost Click, and have taken a number of steps not only to disable them, but to help internet users until they do.  They've been working with ISPs and providing known clean DNS servers so that affected users can redirect to them to browse safely.  On July 9th, support for these temporary clean DNS servers ends, so everyone has to make sure that they're up to snuff.

What Can I Do?

But fear not friends.  There is something that can be done.  First and foremost, go to this website to check if your current DNS settings are legit and not hijacked: http://dns-ok.us/.  If the image comes back with a nice green background like at the top of this post, then your DNS settings are in good working order.  If it comes back red, that means your DNS settings have been jacked to hit rogue DNS servers and you have some fixes to make.  There will be a link too that will point you in the right direction.

If it comes back red, there are steps you can take.  The FBI as well as the DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG) have sites set up to guide you through the process that you can get to at the bottom of this post.  The most important thing to remember is that if your check does come back red, as I mentioned that means that you could be vulnerable to additional malware and viruses.

Check in with your local nerd if you have any issues or questions.  I've also set up a temporary email address you can send your questions to through July 9th, at helpdesk@tusharnene.com.

DNS Changer Checker: http://dns-ok.us

Official FBI DNS Changeer website:http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911

DCWG DNS Changer website: http://www.dcwg.org/

Technical Fowl Starts Crunching Numbers

"this is a pie chart describing my favorite bars.
and this is a bar graph describing my favorite pies"
-Marshall, How I Met Your Mother

Data.  It's what makes the world go 'round.

Every aspect of everything in this world, and as far as I'm concerned some things outside of this world, can be chopped, divided, categorized, classified, and ultimately qualified or quantified into beautiful data.  They become tiny snippets of information that can be combined, calculated or even further broken down to represent everything around us.  So go ahead and tell me that it's not data, but money or love like it's sung in the songs, but how can you quantify it?  Oh that's right, sweet data.

Now if a pie chart was made on me, one nicely sized slice of it would be labeled "engineer."  And engineers love data.  LOVE it.  Any engineer that claims anything different is either lying about being one of our illustrious numbers or still in their first year and just hasn't put together a decent lab notebook yet.  In my case that engineering was the electrical flavor, so those notebooks consisted of circuit diagrams, waveforms, columns of data and I-V curves, and all sorts of other meticulously categorized and charted data.

... and doodles too.  What?  Running tests in labs took time, and I needed something to do.

the 4th of July is awkwardly on a Wednesday in 2012

That was a pretty narrow scope but the basic theory still holds.  I still love the data. And just as important I still love to doodle.  Over the last couple of years I've started to grow a fondness not just for data and doodles though, but the combination of the two in charts and other forms of data visualization.  I appreciate Marshall's charts and graphs on How I Met Your Mother despite his friends' intervention, and was 100% on board with Barney's hot/crazy graph, better known of course as the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal.  I'm borderline addicted to Jessica Hagy's Indexed, and check in with I Love Charts every morning to see what Jason Oberholtzer and company have in store for the day (one of mine was featured today by the way, if you're interested).

Visualized data and infographics can be used for both good and evil though.  Data can be arbitrary, and even good numbers can be skewed and bent to fit the message, but a lot of times they can just be something interesting and hopefully something that comes with a little bit of humor.  And as for the delineation of good versus evil, well I'll let you make the call.

I doodle a couple charts based on some stuff I see on Twitter - one of them was for a short lived push that was the Sushi Avengers Initiative (if you really want to know I'll tell you) but they're nothing earth shattering or crazy.  Just simple graphical representation of observed data.  And I like drawing/charting/graphing them too.   So instead of limiting them to the twitterverse, it'll be a thing here from now on at technical fowl -  hopefully at the rate of once per week to satisfy the need for data I know you have, even if it's secretly.

And if the side effect is being a chartist in residence at I Love Charts, then so be it!

Death, Taxes, and Diablo III

As I have spent the majority of my 30 years in the Philadelphia area, it’s only appropriate that I start with some words from the greatest Philadelphian in history, Benjamin Franklin.  He did a lot of great things, mainly illustrating his well-versedness in badassery, but it was something he said that was relevant to today’s topic.  While speaking of the Constitution in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy (not of Jenkins lineage), he said: “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”  It became a commonly used phrase over the next 200+ years, as the validity of the statement really has withstood the test of time.  And now, in 2012, it can also be applied in our digital age. Surprisingly not even Blizzard’s Diablo universe can escape.

Anyone who plays Diablo III, or actually any player that has played any game in the Diablo series can attest to the first half of ol’ Ben’s epithet.  Death is certain.  That’s become more true with every iteration of the game.  With always-on single player mode, even more so.  In Hardcore mode, even more.  But what they may not realize is that the other half of the saying also holds in the realm of Sanctuary.  Yes that’s right, taxes.

Let me jump back to World of Warcraft for a second before I continue for those of you that aren’t familiar.  In that game, Blizzard had implemented an auction house system to buy and sell items in game between users on the same server.  Someone selling an item could do so by holding an auction or setting an outright buyout price.  This concept spilled over into the world of Diablo III, where the same kind of auction house has been put in place.  The difference is that in WoW all of the transactions (well, legal ones) were strictly based on gold, the in-game currency.  Diablo 3 has a somewhat evolved version of that concept with two auction houses – one for in-game gold transactions, and one for real money.  Yes that’s right, you can buy and sell in-game items with other players for real cash monies – cold hard American greenbacks.   And it’s really changed how the game works.

So this may be a method to cut illegal real money trade for digital goods, but let’s be real, there’s plenty of money to be made in making illegal trade both legal and regulated.  It works as a continuous revenue stream for Blizzard too, since Diablo III’s not subscription based like WoW. Oh yes, they get their cut.

The real money auction house wasn’t available to players until June 12^th, but when it did launch it kind of got my gears turning.  The cost structure is pretty basic – the seller sells, the buyer buys, and Blizzard gets up to 15% of the transaction fee for brokering the deal.  So if one was so inclined, they could turn the game into a personal revenue stream to make a little extra money on the side, after Blizzard takes their fee.  Doing it enough and doing it well could in theory fetch a player some good dough, as players with disposable income clamor for shortcuts to legendary loots.  So once you get to that place, where you’re making some profit from the game, you might have to start thinking about taxes.  No, not the 15% Blizzard cut or the 6% most of you paid when you purchased the game.  I’m talking about income tax that you could owe to the IRS off of your Diablo III profits.

Taxes are a tricky thing, especially in the digital age.  What you owe doesn’t just come from a W-2 or a 1099 anymore.  A lot of stuff people buy is online, untaxed, meaning in most places you have to declare those purchases on your tax returns and pay what’s called a “use tax.”  And sometimes people make money off of other things like hobbies and side businesses.  There have been a lot of arguments on the battle.net and Blizzard forums about this exact topic with respect to the real money auction house – so  yes or no, are your real money auction house earnings taxable?

Tushar’s short answer: YES.

Tushar’s long answer: Anecdotally, yes.  I’m not a tax professional and for any concerns you should contact one should you be living real money auction house fabulous.  Then again I don’t think I really need to be a tax pro for this, because as it turns out, I can read English.

You see unfortunately, reading the terms of use and other end-user agreements isn’t something the average user feels it’s necessary to do, even when there’s money concerned.  So first some advice – if you are one of those people, start reading these things.  Second, it’s laid out plain as day in section 10 of the Diablo III Auction House Terms of Use (that all of you have already agreed to if you’re using it):

10. TAXES. You are responsible for taxes incurred when you use the Auction Houses. All auctions are deemed to occur in the United States of America and are subject to all applicable state and federal tax laws and regulations. Proceeds from auction sales may be considered income for tax purposes. You should consult with a tax specialist to determine your tax liability for these transactions.

There you go kids.  “Proceeds from auction sales may be considered income for tax purposes.”  But now here’s the fun part – you’re the one that has to report it, as folks that make money off of services like eBay do.  Blizzard's not your employer in this scenario.  You made money selling your digital wares to another player, and they were just the agent.  I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be getting a W-2 in the mail from them before tax time.  Chances are if you’re not the type of person that reports online purchases for use tax, you’re not going to be reporting this either, and you’ll probably be ok because you don’t make a lot of money from it.  If you are in fact making a few grand on it, kudos to you and your keen understanding of game economics.

But it gets even more interesting.  Let's consider for a second the stock market.  I buy a $100 issue and tomorrow it increases in value to $110.  Technically I made $10, but I never realized the profit.  It's not real cash in my pocket.  So I don't pay tax on that $10 I made until I sell the stock to realize the profit, and it becomes real cash in my pocket.  Blizzard has a digital wallet system that seems to kind of work the same way and in my opinion a parallel could be drawn.  Technically what's in your Blizzard wallet isn't "real" cash, and may be exempt from taxation.  If you're working through PayPal on the other hand, I believe they're now required by the IRS to report your PayPal income as a third party settlement organization. 

Bottom Line?  If you make income - any income, it's reportable to the IRS.  Not always taxable, but reportable.  There's no explicitly listed  minimum value that makes income reportable.  In this particular case, in my opinion, I would say anything below the cost of the game wouldn't be considered income.  So if you made a few bucks on the real money auction house, just report it.  It'll make your head hurt far less, minimize your tax risk, however little it may be, and you still come out in the black.

Just keep your receipts, kids.

Cosplay and Reality - A Day at Comic Con vs A Day at the Golf Course

Would you ever guess that there would be anything similar between going to comic con and going out to play a round of golf?  On one hand you have a citywide celebration of geekery, with comic and sci-fi icons signing pictures and a flood of citizens of geekdom overtaking a convention center.  On the other hand, you have an outdoor sport traditionally played in a country club environment - calm, quiet and finishing with a drink and a cigar at the clubhouse. Go ahead, try to come up with some similarities.  I'll wait.

So what did you come up with?  Nothing?  I suppose that's fair.  You may find it easier to build a fire with two sticks and pure rage than to succeed in this ridiculous exercise.  But after witnessing what I did at my last round of 18 at the local golf course, I sat down on my couch and drew one parallel.

And I'll get to it in a second.  First let me address what I know what some of you may be thinking.  Those who know me personally know I'm a pretty massive geek.  Massive of course both in the sense that I am not only a large man, but also can sit through a Marvel movie marathon for over 15 hours and thoroughly enjoy myself, regardless of the risk of potential muscle atrophy or heart attack from the sheer volume of popcorn consumed.  So golf?  Really?  Well kids, it can't be all pure geekery 24/7 (don't panic!).  I mean we all have to have to do other things.  Having a day job for one, even if it exists for the sole purpose of supporting our geeky habits.  Granted mine is one where I'm paid to run computer nerd operations for my company, but still, while it may not be directly obvious to some, a well-rounded geek serves him or herself way more than one who doesn't know anything other than geek culture.  I try to play golf whenever I can.  I handle business like a damn professional.  And I roll a barbarian in Diablo III.  The majority of my world is based in reality.  How else could I go by my tagline of tech boss by day and nerd hero by night?  Ethics, man.  Come on.

But business? Sports? What the hell is this?  I thought you were a nerd hero!  Well deal with it.  In D&D they call it multi-classing.

And as it has been pointed out to me, that reference is why my nerd hero status is never called into question.

So back to comic cons, golf and cosplay.  Cosplayers at a comic con dress up as their favorite characters from nerd culture - be it a game, comic book, tv series or movie.  Strolling the show floor in costumes ranging from shabbily thrown together rags to masterfully crafted costumes that would make you swear that they jumped out of the pages of a comic book or off of a movie screen, it's always fun to see.  Believe it or not, I see the same thing on the golf course.  Folks step up to the first tee in everything from a simple polo and pants to a full on branded PGA tour getup, complete with a Bubba Watson pink driver.

The real surprise to me was which out of these two groups is actually more grounded in reality.  From my experience, contrary to what many may think, it's the comic con cosplayers.  Let's look at an example - I got a picture of a couple at Wizard World Philadelphia dressed like Green Arrow and Black Canary.  Their costumes were pretty good, and in the picture you'll notice the lovely young lady cosplaying Black Canary was posing as though she was hitting us with a canary cry.  But she knew it was just a pose, and that she wasn't about to demolish any of the booths around us or incapacitate any guests.  You see, Black Canary is a comic book character and I'm pretty sure she knew that the costume didn't come with superpowers.

The foursome in front of me last weekend at the golf course were altogether different.  They were playing from the blue tees (see geek translation: "hard mode") and were dressed the part, so it would appear to onlookers that they actually knew what they were doing.  They stood behind the tee staring at their $50-per-box golf ball on the tee for roughly a minute.  Set up their stance for another.  Then they took their backswing, swung it through, and drilled the hell out of the ball... exactly 100 feet straight to the right into the woods.  It's like bringing out your old Nintendo and Super Mario Brothers cartridge, blowing into it with your version of whatever ritual we all had loading the game into the console, starting level 1-1, and running directly into the first pit.

See these guys were in fact cosplaying - instead of dressing like characters from a game or comic, they were dressed up like the pros playing on the PGA Tour, with a stark difference.  Where our Black Canary cosplayer didn't actually think she would knock me out with a canary cry, these guys sincerely thought that they were going to crush it onto the green for an easy birdie, just like they do on TV.  They did the same thing on putts - squatting to read the green for no less than 90 seconds before lining up to try knocking the ball into the cup.  And then miss.  Not by a little either - it wasn't even close sometimes.  And I bet after finishing the 18th hole they kicked back in the clubhouse talking about how awesome they were.

So while the comic con cosplayers were the ones getting odd stares on the train from the suburbs down to the convention center, the ones that have actually lost touch with reality can be found at your local golf course.  Because what's really insane?  Donning a fun costume for a few days of geeky fun?  Or truly believing that buying that set of Razr X Musclebacks is going to let you pitch and chip like Phil Mickelson?

A Short Interlude: Lost Continuity

What's up kids?  Taking a one post break to let you all know about a new side project I'm working on, teaming up with New Age Amazon's Ashly Nagrant on a site called Lost Continuity.  It's the brainchild of the both of us talking comics, sci fi, and pop culture in general, crossing the streams and inadvertently creating mashup universes that may or may not already exist.  Being a firm proponent of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, I like to see it not only as charging headlong into ridiculousness but really creating parallel realms of ridiculousness.

Yeah, my ego rolls that large.

Look, comics, games and sci-fi do it alllll the time - timelines get twisted, realities shifted, and things invariably find themselves in some sort of level of crisis.  Be it final, be it on infinite earths, or be it just being hungry.  You know you've done it too. I mean me and my grad school roommate once had a conversation on the speed of sriracha's delicious flavor and whether or not it's faster than lightning. That's right.  The speed of delicious flavor versus the laws of nature.  And we were stone sober too.  These things just happen on their own.  Does it make sense?  No.  But does it have to? Not at all.  These are the conversations you have that finish with "man we have to write that down," because seriously who's going to remember all that?  At Lost Continuity that's all we're really doing.  Writing it down for posterity and really for the betterment of the world at large.  Making sure those mashups and crossovers survive. So you're welcome.

So the next time you and your friends start talking about "who would win in a fight between a watcher from Fringe and Gambit at Aperture Labs?" or "what if Tony Stark was arrested for public drunkenness and hired Harvey Birdman as his attorney?" or even "what if the Doctor was brown?" you let us know.  Because in addition to our combined vast ridiculous pop culture knowledge, we'll always take suggestions.  feel free to fire one out to us at tushar@lostcontinuity.com or ashly@lostcontinuity.com and we'll do what we can.  In the meantime, check out Lost Continuity and see what you can expect.

Because it might be something crazy enough for you to enjoy, like a Green Lantern cake.  And for those of you who don't recognize the image, that's Superboy Prime punching reality. I feel like there's some meaning there.

Philly Geekend - Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con 2012 for a Casual Attendee

This weekend I was able to make it out to the Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia - a weekend every year when nerds from the area descend upon the city of brotherly love to celebrate comic nerdery in all its forms.  Now before I go on about it let me say three things.  (1) I'm pretty sure no one considers me "press." I'm not sponsored by anyone nor was I going to the convention on behalf of any organization.  It was just me going for fun.  So despite the number awesome guests that were attending the show, I didn't shell out for any VIP sessions, panels or photo-ops.  After admission and the stuff I bought, I wasn't about to spend a few hundred dollars more.  (2) I really should have broken this down into Saturday and Sunday and posted each day, but I didn’t, so I apologize for how long this is going to be.  And finally (3) My day job requires me to, well you know, be there, so I was only able to attend on Saturday and Sunday, not the whole 4-day stretch (which I do regret to some degree).  But even attending for only two days, I got to meet some cool people, have some interesting discussions with artists and exhibitors, spotted a few celebrities, and of course saw some decent cosplayers, as one comes to expect from a comic con, of course.  After waiting about 40 minutes to pick up “advance tickets” I thought would save me said 40 minutes, I was finally wristbanded and on my way in.

I got to have some good conversations with some comic people about art, comics, and the industry in general.  The first one was with Greg Horn, artist extraordinaire responsible for a long list of outstanding covers for a number of publishers including Marvel and DC, most recently for DC's Blackest Night series and Wonder Woman #600.  He's done work for Top Cow and Image as well, and is currently doing some cool stuff for Zenescope (that's him on the right channeling his best Galactus).  I bought a couple of prints that were for sale – a sweet Arkham City rendition of Joker and Harley Quinn and another featuring Wonder Woman as a Star Sapphire from Blackest Night.  Picked up his art books too.  But what made the encounter cool was that he actually talked to me at length on the side of the booth while he was signing stuff for other people (which he did for no charge by the way).  On top of comics in general I was surprised to find that he was very up on his Indian legends, namely the Mahabharata, and told me the story about the publishing and abrupt halt to the comic book that was going to be made from that legend.  It's a shame it was stopped too, because his knowledge and sketches for it were fantastic, even to someone like me who's well versed in Mahabharata legend.  So on top of doing some of my favorite covers in all comic-dom, it was nice to see that he's a super cool guy too.  In fact, you should check out some of his art.

Jeff Kaufman from Big City Comics was the next long conversation I had.  I went to the booth to find out more about Big City's graphic novel Terminal ALICE, and it spun into talking about not only comics, but movies too - mostly the art of the head fake and the twist.  Apparently there were a lot of people that finished Terminal ALICE and didn't "get it," ultimately prompting Kaufman to change his nameplate from "Writer" to "Writer/Douche" as the title on his nametag.  What was interesting about this discussion was him recounting his experience visiting Normandy in France and drawing inspiration for one of his comics - because apparently according to the locals Steven Spielberg did the same thing to get inspiration for Saving Private Ryan.  He then showed it to me, and after looking at it for a while I came to the same conclusion he did, that the Normandy beach scene from X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have been a shot for shot copy and paste.  I'm looking forward to getting through Terminal ALICE to see for myself, because according to Kaufman, he gives the reader everything they need to figure it out, and I don’t intend to lose.

Now when I said before that there were some awesome guests and I spotted some celebrities, I mean that there were some awesome guests.  Stan Lee, one of the godfathers of modern comics was there, indirectly causing me to be immobilized in a crowd of people waiting to stand in line for a picture or autograph.  I did see him but couldn't get close enough to snap a photo, as I didn't shell out the $80 to do so.  A friend of mine got to meet him and have a couple of his comics signed, and said he was a pretty funny guy.  When he asked Stan the Man how he was doing, his response was "Well I'm here, so I THINK I'm doing OK."  To be honest I expected no less after we’ve all seen his usually comical cameo in Marvel movies, not to mention his role in one of the funniest scenes in Mallrats.  This con was kind of a Mecca for Star Trek fans too.  I believe this was the first time that all of the captains from the different Star Trek shows (Shatner, Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew, Bakula) were together in the same spot at the same time.  I was able to see them all, but wasn’t about to fight the mobs to try and get through.  And on a side note – Patrick Stewart is aging extremely well.  Must be all that time he spent with Q.

Then there was the original Hulk Lou Ferrigno, Thor's Chris Hemsworth, Heroes cheerleader Hayden Panatierre, the original Buffy Kristy Swanson, and a bevy of wrestlers headlined by CM Punk, who commanded the longest lines for anything I’ve ever seen in my life.  And I have to tell you, after seeing a guy like Paul Bearer in character for so many years, seeing him chilling at his booth texting was something that was exceptionally amusing to me.

In contrast to guys like Stan Lee and Greg Horn, there were a lot of artists and publishers that were relatively small scale, and a couple of webcomic artists that I've never heard of before.  I got to talk to the guys from web series Sean and Such, about a guy named Sean (but you probably guessed that) trying to run a pet store with his ridiculous coworkers.  I also spoke with the guys from inkbbot.net, who work with a mission I can get on board with – to make comics as ridiculous as possible.  They run a bunch of webcomics at their site, the one capturing my attention most being Casey the Pillowfighter.  Think 300, but he fights with a pillow.  I picked up a print copy of it and the artist, Louie Chin, was cool enough to sign it next to a sketch of me on the inside cover that he did in about a minute unbeknownst to me.

And let’s not forget 30 Rock’s Dot Com talking presidential run in 2016.  Why not 2012?  Because in his words, President Obama is a “black superhero.”  And let’s be real folks, there’s a good chance I may be running mate.  Dot Com / Brown Town 2016 – has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? And I finally met Katrina Hill, the Action Flick Chick herself at the GeekNation booth.

There were some tremendous cosplayers there as well - some of these folks really went all out to get the look of their favorite comic/movie/tv/game character.  From characters ranging from the Dude to Lollipop Chainsaw's Juliet (who by the way gives Jessica Nigri a run for her money) there were characters there dressed to the nines.  

Then there was the GeekNation launch party Saturday night.  They shut down the Field House to the general public for a nerd-only party celebrating the beta launch for GeekNation.  Complete with drink specials named “Thor’s Hammer” and other superhero-themed libations, this might have been the largest collection of nerds I’ve ever seen inside a bar at one time.  The best part about the whole thing was that while people were being turned away at the door, I was told by the bouncer “You’re good sir, go on in” after seeing the Green Lantern logo emblazoned on my chest and wristband.  Actually that’s a lie.  The best part was having a shot with “Super Bikini Girl,” one of the models from the Superhero Photography booth.   All very strange though – a private party where nerds got the VIP treatment and the sports bros got the boot. I met some fun people in there too, including some folks from SuperHeroStuff.com, who was a big sponsor for the night along with the fine people from Zenescope.

All in all it was a good time for a casual con attendee.  The bulk of all of this was on Saturday, and there weren’t nearly as many people there on Sunday.  Which was true for cosplayers as well. Next year I may actually take part in some of the panels and go for the full four days, because something tells me I’m missing a lot on opening day and day 2.

You can see the rest of my photos and more cosplayers here.  Some Spaceballs in there, The Big Lebowski, and a bunch of comic characters in there.  And if you are any of these people or know who they are, let me know so I can post your name for credit.

Diablo III and "Always On" DRM

[Article first published as Diablo III and "Always On" DRM on Blogcritics.]

Over time, publishers have resorted to multiple methods of enforcing digital rights management (DRM) on many forms of media, but it started with games.  Of course this had its humble beginnings in software keys, but some games had some fun with it.  The very old Monty Python’s Flying Circus game for example (yeah, it existed) was DRM equipped way back in 1990, where to begin my quest I had to correctly identify a brick of cheese based on a list provided with the game.  LucasArts had a similar system with the Monkey Island series of games in the 1990’s, having the user match up three sections of the included “dial-a-pirate” and enter the corresponding code  (earlier titles also featured DRM).  But of course soon a bunch of companies dropped the gamification of DRM methods (for lack of a better term) and started going the more straightforward route.  More recently Ubisoft led the charge with their hated “always on” DRM system – meaning that even if you wanted to play one of their single player games, the game still had to check in with Ubisoft servers to make sure your copy was legit.  Internet not working?  Well that sucks for you, Chuckles, because neither is your game.

The reason I bring this up is due to the number of users having always on issues with the still-fresh-out-of-the-oven release of Diablo III – including myself.  Last night I joined a game with a few friends and we started chugging along the first questline for the Skeleton King.  As we were just getting to the final dungeon for that quest, my friends started dropping out of the game one by one, until, while exploring the dungeons, enemies stopped chasing me and I realized something was wrong before I got the boot.  Trying to log in several times after this I was greeted with multiple errors that all pointed to the Diablo servers being down, from authentication issues to being unable to connect to the servers to a message that flat out told me the server was unavailable.  So now what?  With the servers being down, logic would dictate that I could no longer play a group game with my friends.  Sure, makes sense.  But the real issue to me was that I couldn’t even play alone.  Without being able to connect to Blizzard servers, I couldn’t even see my character list.  This happens in Blizzard’s MMO World of Warcraft as well when I can’t connect, but I have no problem with that.  The point of an MMO is that the game is based online.  So what the hell is this MMO feature doing in my single-player game?

 This was never an issue with Diablo II.  My copy was registered to me and if anyone else that wasn’t me tried to get onto battle.net they simply wouldn’t be allowed.  I had the freedom to play the single player campaign which gave me randomly generated maps every time through, let me pause the game if I had to step away from the computer, and most importantly, play it whenever the hell I wanted.  And if I had the desire to play with friends, which I did frequently, we would simply start a LAN game or get on open battle.net and go to town.  Or play my separate battle.net characters.  So why on earth would they change stuff up now?

Last August, Blizzard’s VP of Online Technologies Robert Bridenbecker sat down with MTV to discuss the always on issue and said the following: "Internally I don't think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that's not really entering into why we want to do it. I'm a huge purveyor of online sites and from my standpoint, I don't look at DRM solutions and go, 'Wow, those are awesome.' I look at those and say, 'Wow, those kind of suck.' But if there's a compelling reason for you to have that online connectivity that enhances the gameplay, that doesn't suck. That's awesome."

Diablo III Senior Producer Alex Mayberry also cited World of Warcraft as evidence of this being the direction gaming is going, but as I mentioned I don’t see how comparing a game with single player component to an MMO that has no single player components is valid.  I still think the shortcomings outweigh the benefits.  Sure, I understand that in Diablo II, since the characters were stored on my computer, I could lose my character in a computer crash or alter and create characters and equipment out of game.  But I could still play whenever the hell I wanted.  And Diablo III now has a battletag system for communication and stores characters safe and sound on their servers.  But I still can’t play whenever the hell I want.  Worthless account-wide achievements so players can show off?  Sweet!  But I still can’t play whenever the hell I want.

You sensing a theme yet?

In addition to that glaring shortcoming, what happens to “hardcore” mode characters?  When a disconnect happens or you log off or even if you join someone else’s game, you still take 10 seconds worth of damage from anything you happen to be around.  In regular mode that may not be too big of an issue but if your internet drops in hardcore mode, you could in theory be waving bye bye to that character forever.

Even if, as Mr. Bridenbecker says, that the always connected systems were built around features and not with DRM in mind, I’m sure other publishers who are watching this topic will be taking it the other direction.  They’ll look at Diablo III, which is still going to be wildly successful and sell nothing less than a ridiculous amount of copies, and more importantly how they did it all with an always on DRM methodology.  It’s what makes publishers drool dollar signs and lawyers thankful that they’re on retainer.  It may inspire other publishers to make this the standard, locking out single player modes and ultimately turn gaming into a type of enterprise-grade software as a service that my colleagues and I have to deal with in IT.  This in turn would act as a deterrent to piracy, sure, but could also end up actively working against consumers.  Some people travel a lot.  Some people don't have access to super high speed internet connections.  And with rumored methods of blocking used games in next-gen consoles, I shudder to think what the combination of both would be, as well as the eventual spread to other forms of media like movies and television.  It could set a horrifying anti-consumer precedent.

Bottom line – with the exception of MMOs, players shouldn’t be locked out of single-player content.  Period.  Ever.  It is sad because Diablo III is otherwise a very well put-together game with far more polished mechanics than its predecessors.  But unfortunately, its “always on” methodology strikes me something ill, and it’s still a single player game I can’t play whenever the hell I want.