RoamingGecko

To come directly to the point, I collect playing cards. It’s probably my cheapest hobby. Since most decks cost under 10 dollars it a hell of a lot cheaper than most of the video games I buy. Lately plastic cards have caught my attention. It seems like the natural progression in the manufacturing of playing cards. They are more durable than paper. They can get wet and therefore be cleaned and for that reason will last longer than the average deck of plastic coated playing cards. They also are capable of bending without damage to an extent well beyond what a paper card can sustain. So, with that said, if you wanted to purchase a set of plastic cards of your own to experiment with I decided to review those cards that I have purchased in attempt to give people a better idea on what to look for in a deck of plastic cards.

So let’s get on with the first review, the Modiano 4 Color Poker set. This is a four color deck. These decks are more popular overseas than they are here in the U.S. but are starting to catch on here so don’t be surprised to run across a deck in the near future. Spades are still black and hearts are still red but the clubs in this deck are green and the diamonds are blue. I purchased these cards (a red and blue deck) online for approximately $10 USD and they are manufactured in Italy. After shuffling and dealing a couple of hands I noticed they are a little thicker than the other plastic cards that I have. They also have a very nice texture to them. While plastic, they have a paper feel to them which I attribute to the texture more than anything else. Here is the back of the blue deck…

The back of the blue deck, Modiano 4 Color Poker Deck

This is actually the second deck of this set of cards. There was a problem with one of the cards in the first set. When I contacted Modiano they happily replaced the deck with a new set. I was very pleased with their customer service. I should point out that the back design was different in the replacement set than the one I originally purchased so I can’t be sure what the backs will look like should you purchase your own deck. Overall I am very pleased with this set of cards. I have several plastic decks and this one is first on my list. (Copag, Dal Negro, Gemaco being some of the other manufacturers. I will review these decks in later posts.)

The colors in the face cards are better than other decks I own. The Copag Fall edition comes to mind. I didn’t care too much for the abundance of green ink they used on the face cards of that deck. The colors are more balanced on the Modiano deck in my opinion. Take a look here at the Queen of Clubs.

The Queen of Clubs

The blue on the diamond cards is a little lighter than I would have personally chosen but still looks good. Here is the jack of diamonds.

The Jack of Diamonds

The red used for the heart suit is more or less the standard and the color most have come to expect. I am including the picture below more or less to give you another look at the face cards for this deck. The ace of hearts also bears the company’s name as well as the place where they are manufactured. Trieste, Italy. I’m not sure what the significance of the stag logo but it appears on every set of Modiano cards that I own so I am assuming it’s a company logo.

The Ace of Hearts

So, to sum up this short but hopefully helpful review of the Modiano 4 Color deck, this is a set of cards that I am very pleased to have purchased and have no reservations on recommending it to others. I like the thickness of the cards, the texture and the classic feel of the paper deck I get when using them. If you don’t already own deck of plastic cards then this is definitely the one to start with and an excellent first purchase. If anyone has any questions about this deck or plastic cards in general, please feel free to post a comment to this post and I will be happy to answer your questions if I can.

One last parting image and one I intend to leave the reader with in every deck review I do, the ace of spades from the deck. The ace of spades is the signature card for any deck of cards produced the world over.

The Ace of Spades

I hope you enjoyed this review and remember to post any questions you might have in the comment section below. Cheers!

We brought home a new puppy this past weekend. He’s adorable and affectionate and I think he’s going to fit right in. This capped a good week for us. Bought a new car and brought home a new Basenji. It was a good week.

YouTube – Google Wave Overview

Ok, I am not going to suggest that anyone watch an 80 minute video to see what Google Wave is all about so I am using this video (It’s only 8 minutes long). Spend 8 minutes and you will get a pretty good idea of what Google Wave is all about. I see a lot of potential in this web app and think it will be an excellent group project tool.

Once this app goes mainstream things are really going to get good. Google’s choice to make it open source is going to really drive third party developers.

It’s Google for pete’s sake. They’re like internet gold.

THE BLOOD BROKERS – HOW BLOOD, THE ‘GIFT OF LIFE,’ BECAME A BILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS

Posting this link to explain to people why I detest the Red Cross and their business practices. Have you noticed how, if you are a blood donor, that they call you constantly with the zeal of a deranged telemarketer? You think they do this because for some holy, altruistic drive to help people?

You are delusional. They are doing it to make money. That’s their drive, to fill their pockets.

I could go on and on about this topic but I think you should do the research yourself. Spend 5 minutes with Google and see if you don’t come to despise them as I do.

To get you started I will list a few links for you to peruse at your leisure.

Bad Blood

Billion Dollar Greed

If you are like me and can’t stand YouTube annotations because most people use them way too much you can turn them off by following the instructions in the image above. You can turn them back on using the menu on the YouTube player but this will allow you to watch YouTube videos with the annotations turned off by default.

This setting will only work while you are logged in. You will have to do this all over again the next time you log in. Annoying, yes? Send them a letter letting them know what a monumentally stupid decision it was to make users do this each time they log in.

YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
USA
Phone: +1 650-253-0000
Fax: +1 650-253-0001

Penny Arcade! – The Wisdom Of Solomon.

This morning, excited about finally getting 3G and wondering if that meant MMS wasn’t too far behind, I did a Google search on what it was going to take to get MMS working once the 25th rolled around and I came across the 5.0 version of the carrier file. Well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it out as long as I had a back up and so I uploaded it to my iPhone and discovered that I could receive MMS messages. I wasn’t able to send MMS at that time but after several hours (I am guessing AT&T’s system took a few hours to make the adjustment on its own) I was also able to send MMS.  Here are some images from my phone showing MMS is in fact enabled.

If you would like to give this a go yourself, follow the steps below;

• Make sure iTunes isn’t running and open up a Terminal window and cut and paste the following command into the window and hit enter.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

• Download this file…

2. Open iTunes and select your iPhone. While holding down the Option key click the Update button. Browse to to the file you downloaded in the step above and continue.

• Turn off your iPhone to reboot it.
• Be sure your MMS settings are set the same as in the image below. (Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network -> MMS)

You should now be able to at least receive MMS messages. It took a couple of hours before I was able to send them myself but as the images above show I can in fact send and receive MMS. You will be able to tell that MMS is now enabled as there will be a camera icon in the MMS message window to the left of the text input field. Clicking the send icon in the lower left when you are viewing a photo will now show an MMS button. Now I am not guaranteeing that this will work for anyone else but if you are in Blacksburg as I am it should work. I don’t know what will happen when MMS is officially rolled out but my guess is I will update my phone at that time and every thing will be just as if I had not updated my carrier file early.

Good Luck. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.

Here is a copy of the original ippc file should you want to revert back to the 4.0 version of the carrier file.

Wow! This is awesome. Sure it would probably suck if they did a full length movie but still, the effects in the short are done really well. I would probably hit the theater if they did make a movie but I will settle for the game out later this month.

Came across this annoying little quirk this evening while working in Photoshop. I was constantly rotating the canvas of my image accidentally using the trackpad on my MacBook Pro. Now, I love the multi-touch track pad but in this instance it was getting a little out of hand. If you have run across this your self, click the image above or the link below to download a plugin that will disable this feature while using Photoshop.

Adobe – Photoshop : For Macintosh : Adobe Photoshop CS4 Disable Canvas Rotation Via Trackpad plug-in

Just finished watching “Band of Brothers” on Blue-Ray. Has to be one of the best damn mini-series that I have ever watched and it looks absolutely spectacular on Blue-Ray. Which is why I am excited for March to arrive so I can watch “The Pacific”. Spielberg and Hanks team up once again to bring us another 10 part mini-series chronicling exploits in the Pacific by US Marines. Hopefully this will be every bit as good as Band of Brothers was and March can’t get here soon enough for me. See the trailer from HBO below.