Andy Laub

It’s no secret I was amazingly reticent about Sony’s PS3 when it first launched. There were a lot of things wrong with the picture. Over time, my coldness became more of a lukewarmness – still not completely satisfied but more impressed with particular aspects of the experience. As the price dropped and software/hardware updates became a regularity, ownership became a real possibility and I added it to my list.

So when WalMart in all of their WalMartiness offered a $100 gift card with the purchase of an 80GB PS3, I jumped on it. I opted to order it from their website rather than drive out to the store (which is kind of a lose-lose, really) and it arrived yesterday, in the midst of a million other things I really should be doing instead. So far I’ve only spent about an hour with it, but it’s such a different feel from other consoles I’ve experienced that the initial impressions are probably some of the most interesting.

Packaging and Pack-ins

Since this is just a base-model, 80GB unit there’s nothing really to write home about. It includes a DualShock 3 controller (finally) and… not much else. There’s no power brick as there were with the Wii and 360, which is nice, but seriously, Sony? Composite cables? Those are worthless. I initially decided to get the component video adapter ($20) since our TV doesn’t have HDMI, but I remembered that it does have DVI, and so instead the plan is to use a DVI/HDMI adapter with a standard HDMI cable – it’s about half the price and we can continue to use it when we upgrade to HDMI eventually. The cables are all still in transit, which means that all of my experience thus far has been through the included cables.

Setup

Physical setup: no different than any other piece of hardware, so it’s worth skipping. Except that when you first turn the unit on you have to plug in the wireless controller… okay, whatever. The initial startup process begins with an orchestra tuning their instruments (this is the startup screen?), then guides you through establishing the date and time (can’t this be pulled from the network?), giving your name, and optionally connecting to the internet. Nothing particularly difficult, though it felt more tedious than setting up the 360. Or a computer, for that matter.

Which brings me to an interesting point. The moment you’re launched into the dashboard (Sony calls it the Xross Media Bar, or XMB), you’re bombarded with stuff. Not visually – the layout is very clean, but there are sooooo many features and they’re all much more apparent than on the current 360 dash. It seriously does feel like Sony was out to design some kind of living room computer and decided that they might as well add games to it and call it a PlayStation.

After this, I left, because it needed to download a software update (140MB!) and I had an appointment. An interesting side note here: you have the option of downloading the update on your computer and sticking it on a thumb drive for the PS3, instead of getting it on the machine directly. Anyway, when I came back, it was done, and I only had to spend 5 minutes scrolling through the EULA to get it to install. Then I created a PlayStation Network account (for free, which is great), where I had to do the same thing. I was almost worn out from all the scrolling, but then I got giddy that I could actually use the unit and not have to install anything further (for now).

It still looks terrible, thanks to the composite cable. Type is blurry, and it’s just not the crisp HD that it wants to be. I’ve played with the XMB with a proper video connection and it’s downright gorgeous. It needs to be that when you first turn it on. But other than that, it’s fine for now. Like I said before, it’s very computer-like, which means there’s a LOT of stuff there. Some of the options in the settings, while nice to have, would benefit from a line or two of explanation.

Surfing the Net on the Information Superhighway

The PS3 includes a web browser. I like this. I was anxious to find out if it would work for the only things I would really use it for – watching videos. So I tested it with a couple of sites, with cautious optimism:

• Adult Swim: Because I never know when I’ll need to watch some Aqua Teen Hungerforce or Superjail. It works!
• Hulu: Because watching Prison Break and Chuck when they’re on TV is too much work. It works! (I think)
• YouTube: Because the world needs kitten videos. It works! (Probably)

Everything seemed to be functioning. I want to go back and play with it some more once I have it on a proper ethernet connection, and then I can give final impressions. But still, I was delighted to see that Hulu apparently works, because we had been debating the purchase of a cheap media center PC for similar purposes.

And that’s all I know. Next time: I don’t know yet. Maybe the PS Store or something.

Lately I’ve been thinking long and hard about the internet. It’s amazing to be living in an era when knowledge is essentially instantly accessible.

But at the same time, I’ve been thinking about lines that have to be drawn when it comes to the types of knowledge and content that are available. It’s the golden age of Web 2.0, where a typical person is probably subscribe to at least 2 or more social websites. I know that holds true for me.

And there are so many of them. And a lot of them are good and interesting and have neat technology behind them. But I’m reaching a point where it’s all just overload. Dino and I were talking yesterday and he said that he’s been observing an exodus of sorts from Twitter to Plurk. Great.

I’ve been trying hard to only subscribe to a service when I feel it can genuinely be a benefit to me. Flickr is a no-brainer; it’s the best in the biz when it comes to photo sharing. Facebook is excellent for shooting a quick note or comment to somebody, since a huge percentage of my social circle resides there. LinkedIn seemed like a good idea at the time, but I really haven’t reaped any benefits from it. Twitter, for what it is, is decent. When it works.

The services that I’ve given my attention to have typically been of the more mature, widely-used variety. Call it peer pressure, but why use a social service that none of your friends are using?

But when I started using WordPress three years ago, blogging was the standard fare. The question wasn’t “do I want a blog?”; it was “which blogging software do I want?”. Now with services like Plurk, Pownce, and Tumblr it’s not the de facto choice any more. So then what should I do? If nobody reads my writing on andylaub.com, how much do I care? Should I go somewhere else? Do I want to go somewhere else?

And that’s where Web 3.0 comes in. I predict that very shortly, people are going to get tired of all this sharing. Tired of signing up to the service of the month, finding people they know, and then abandoning it when something new (notice I didn’t say “better”) comes along. Tired of reporting on every little experience they have and calling it “content”. I’ll wager that we’ve all had the feeling – that little, niggling impulse that says “Record this! Photograph this! Twitter this!” And that twinge of guilt when you opt not to do so.

I guess it’s because we want to acquire a sort of tangible catalog of experiences and not rely strictly on memories. I respect that. But if you’re too busy documenting something for posterity’s sake to actually experience it, that’s just crazy.

The internet is a broken mousetrap.

We are the mice. Content is the cheese. Or maybe the desire to give our feedback on content is the cheese.

And just like mice, we often pursue that cheese without all the information and with a disregard for the repercussions.

Just one thing: mice learn. What if somebody fixes the mousetrap?

The experts say that the internet is serious business. I’m inclined to probably agree with them. Well, at least the business part. I mean, anything that makes money is probably a business by definition, so no argument there. Serious, though… that depends. When I’m working, of course. Work is serious. Mostly.

But when I sit down and start to write a post here, I just don’t feel like being serious anymore. I tried. For a long time. And that worries me, because this blog reflects who I am as a person, and somebody wondering if I’m “hire-able” is likely to be turned off by ridiculous content. Or will they? Honestly, blogs websites that take themselves to seriously are generally boring. That’s fine if you’re a bank or the gooberment but not if you want your site to be enjoyable.

I don’t really know or remember where this was meant to go. I saved a line as a draft yesterday as a reminder, but apparently that was not enough to inspire anything vaguely coherent.