Category: Nintendo

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Pokémon Go-Spy-On-People-For-Me?

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This warning has popped up on my news feed several times today, written by someone whose name I am going to withhold for his protection.  Let’s take a look at the claims he’s making, shall we? Information in blockquotes is exactly as posted on Facebook, with no edits made by me except to break it up into investigatable chunks.

SERIOUS WARNING: I want to warn you all about this Pokemon Go app that is all the rage right now.. If you know me at all, you know that I have the inside scoop of what is going on with technology on pretty high levels…

That’s certainly debatable, based on what we’re about to see.

Well, you are familiar with the Google Street View car that drives around and takes 360 degree video and uploads it to google maps for the world to see, etc..

Let me just stop you right there. First, I must insist that the Google Street View car is emphatically not a privacy risk. The car does not enter private property or take images of anything that is not 100% completely public, visible from the street by any driver or passenger. Second, the Street View car doesn’t take video. It takes 360-degree still photos at regular intervals. You may think this is just splitting hairs, but it’s actually quite an important distinction: while you could conceivably discover private information about a person from a video of their actions, a still image provides no personally identifiable information that could not be gleaned by a driver’s glimpse as he passes by.

This Pokemon Go app is a miniature version of the google street video car, and it has you all going around taking videos of inside your house, your yard, and everywhere else you go,

…a function that you can turn off using a switch in the top right hand corner of every screen.

and UPLOADING IT TO THE GOOGLE MAPPING SYSTEM PERMANENTLY..

This is patently untrue. If you have the “AR” switch turned on, the images are not only not sent to the server, they’re actually not even saved to your device. This can be debunked by anyone who checks the app’s data usage (a simple function for anyone with an Android phone); the data usage is far, far too low to be uploading images.

In addition, though Niantic (the developer of Pokémon Go) was once a subsidiary of Google, they were sold by the company last year as a part of their restructuring.

The game even makes you pan your camera around to get the full panorama of the area, which is also tied to the GPS coordinates of that location..

Again, during investigations of the app by outside programmers, it was discovered that images are not even saved to the phone, much less uploaded to any server.

You are all unknowingly uploading video of your most private property right into the new world order NSA database..

This is hilarious. Video uploads are a VERY slow and data-intensive process; just try uploading a 30-second YouTube video. That act takes about five minutes over an LTE connection. If the app isn’t uploading photos (which, again, it’s quite apparent it is not), it certainly isn’t uploading video.

I’m not even going to touch the “new world order NSA database” thing, or the fact that this guy has been ending every sentence with a double period for some reason, or the fact that he used the phrase “all the rage” at the beginning, which basically indicates that he doesn’t have any understanding of current culture or technology at all.

So don’t let anybody play the game in your house or anywhere on your property..

And don’t forget your tinfoil hats.

The bottom line is, people are going to be scared anytime an app or game makes a big splash in the world. But in this case, it’s actually gathering less information on you than Facebook is. So don’t take the word of one simple person about how terrible something could be. Check multiple sources and make sure that they aren’t saying something in a vacuum. And don’t forget to try and understand something before you think it’s an evil plot to take over the world.

As for Pokémon Go? It’s getting people outside. They’re hanging out together, interacting with strangers positively, and being courteous to each other. The game is a great example of how technology can improve us as human beings. Let’s not be so quick to tear it down.

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Making Mario Super

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Updated April 25

I own Super Mario Maker, and in my opinion, it’s one of the few Must-Haves for Wii U owners (also Splatoon and Twilight Princess HD).  I love playing levels, but I also love making levels, particularly normal/easy and traditional levels.  Here are my first few:

 

yi2rm - 0D66-0000-00C6-F788Yoshi’s Island 2: Remixed

My favorite world-one level in any Mario game is Yoshi’s Island 2.  There’s a lot about the level that can’t be replicated in SMM as it currently stands – including, oddly, the length.  So I had to put half of it (the part after the midpoint) underground.

But in doing so, I also accidentally made the level soft-lock-able: if you jump over the fake goal underground without a cape, there’s no way back.  I think this one is due for a remake soon.

ttv - 6BE7-0000-00ED-2938The Thwomp Variations

Super Mario World is my favorite 2D Mario game, and the feeling of the castle is part of why.  I particularly like the way the thwomps have many different ways of challenging the player, and many different ways for the player to deal with them.

I’d like to rebuild this level soon, too, though; it’s really rough.  The branching paths aren’t really worth exploring, and the gimmick doesn’t really pay off in a meaningful way.  Maybe some pink coins would help?

a1yomt - 49A3-0000-00EC-803BA 1-Year-Old Made This

Heh, this one was fun.  And very literal.  My son was watching me build levels, and when I opened up a new castle level, he crawled up to me and started scribbling on the screen.  I erased the unscalable wall he made, gave him cloud blocks to play with, and let him scribble.  Then he chose where to place the galoombas and fish, all of which die before you can reach them.

Then I moved the goal to where he stopped when he got bored and uploaded it!

hi - AAB3-0000-00F5-D9FFHistorically Accurate

Not much to say about this one. It’s World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros., recreated block-for-block in SMM.

I built it in order to build the next one (The 1-1 Rewind), and also because I wanted to look at it in the other styles. Hopefully it can be helpful to others, too!

If I redid this again, I’d probably fix the underground and center it a bit better.

Oh, and fix the thumbnail.  Yuck.

11rw - 214B-0000-00F5-EBCB<< The 1-1 Rewind <<

“Historically Accurate” was  built mostly so I could put this one together.  I wanted its base to match 1-1 as closely as possible.

I like the result.  Play 1-1, but backwards!  Trying to figure out what makes the level good, and then also making it possible to run it backwards, is pretty fun.

I did, of course, add some bonus stuff.  The underground portion is probably my favorite.

ft7hb - 4760-0000-0183-422BFind the Seven Hidden Blocks

I’d been working on a level with a sort of “unreliable narrator,” where it was obvious that whatever you were told to do, you should do the opposite.  It was intended as a joke for people who play a lot of 100 Mario Challenges, because so many builders think it’s fun to do something trolly in exactly the same way as everyone else.  All I could figure out how to do fairly was hidden blocks.

I’ll probably revisit the original idea soon with pink coins, but I’m pretty happy with this one for the time being.

w94 - B76F-0000-01B0-1378World 9-4

In the beginning of 2016, I watched Spamfish play a lot of Super Mario Bros. in his first annual Mariothon.  It took him 61 hours.

And while I was watching, I spent a lot of time thinking about how a ninth-world castle would look.  It came out a lot easier than I expected, though; this is really more of an alternate sixth-world castle.  Still, I like this as a traditional-style level; it was fun to build.

tg-3815-0000-022C-5192New! The Gauntlet

For this one, I needed some help. I had the idea for this course ages ago, and wasn’t able to really make it work until the March 9 Key update, but I still couldn’t make the final battle with Bowser work. So I enlisted the assistance of my friend Luke, and he helped come up with the thwomp/rotating block mechanic in the final battle room – which is, admittedly, a pretty sharp difficulty curve, but I’m ok with it. I’d love to work with that particular mechanic on another level in the future.

I’m also really pleased by the visuals in this one. I think it looks better than any level I’ve made yet!

 

There will be more levels coming soon, but until then, I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback on my levels!