Suraj Reddy

Happy Valentine's Day friends! https://www.instagram.com/p/CLR49VeMYyK/?igshid=gdqb6k1oqnjg

Disclaimer: I fast because of a condition https://www.instagram.com/p/CLPNHdQMjhK/?igshid=kcw5y0zjkgyd

I've been thinking about making a comic for a while, and this is my first! Let me know what you think! ;) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJRNvAqsXrR/?igshid=15fzy292535hv

Just started playing Apex again recently. At my skill level I didn't expect to ever see this screen. https://www.instagram.com/p/B2NwI52H1Rq/?igshid=ngncahtnafv0

Natalie and I just watched the new Hunger Games movie, and we liked it. (Thanks to a friend, we got to enjoy it in D-Box seating, so we could feel the bombs dropping and the planes flying - it was really cool!) At the start of the movie, Katniss was reeling from the events of the previous movie - where she broke the dome of the arena, was rescued, and was made aware of a secret movement against the Capitol. She needed time to recover, but the Rebellion couldn't afford to give her the time she needed. She was worried about Peeta, who was left behind in the Capitol's hands. She wanted no part in a Rebellion. She just wanted to save her family, and save her friend. I think we're like that a lot - we look out for ourselves, and our families, and call that good. But what about everyone else? The rest of the world? In the movie, people were suffering. The Capitol was attacking innocent civilians and keeping people in line with force. There was no freedom, and there was no hope. District 13's President convinced Katniss to think beyond herself, and to see that she was needed - for the world. Each one of us is needed as well - things might seem serene and peaceful around us, but our world is struggling. People are suffering. Surely there's something we can do when we can afford to have houses for our cars and entire families in other parts of the world live in spaces the size of our garages. We can all do something - whether it's giving money, volunteering, or just talking to the person in our own backyard who needs a friend. What are you going to do that's going to have an impact beyond you?

These speeds are over wifi at the Helsinki airport. I think I'm going to make this airport my new home. 

Thank you for considering this!

Say Hello The pitch for Say Hello, a project I worked on during Startup Weekend Toronto.

Orphan Sunday: Why Love Orphans? From Kelly Yen: "This Sunday is Orphan Sunday. What part will you play in caring for the orphans?"

I've just recently bumped into the community at RubyLearning.org - they bring together virtual cohorts of wannabe coders from around the world, and help them learn Ruby, Git, and the like. Satish Talim, the man who started it all, has just created e-pub & mobi versions of his Ruby 1.9 book, and has put it on sale for $5. I've toyed with the book, and it covers everything you need to know about Ruby 1.9, from variables, to blocks, to classes. There's been so many times this summer where I've wondered how to do something in Ruby. With this ebook, I just fire up Kindle, and search for "blocks", and voila, a chapter on blocks. Neat! At $5, it's a steal. Go Get It Now! Disclaimer: I have written this purely out of joy, and have not been paid by RubyLearning in any way.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs. Battlefield 3: Which one's better? With the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 imminent, I thought it'd be good to take some time to discuss these series. I've been playing Call of Duty competitively since Call of Duty 2, and have dabbled in Battlefield since Battlefield 2, all on the PC. So which one's better? I'm hoping to help you figure that out by looking at their appeal, as well as the history and future of each of the series. Their Appeal Here's the big differentiator between both the games: Intimacy. This is definitely not obvious, but it's something I've thought about for a long time. I enjoy Call of Duty. I loathe Battlefield. I've got a friend who enjoys Battlefield. And (you guessed it) loathes Call of Duty. Try as I might, I cannot get myself to play Battlefield. I've played in the Battlefield 2 & 3 betas, and own Bad Company 2. It's not my game. Battlefield is all about the massive scale: Large, Open Landscapes. Vehicles. An Army. Call of Duty is all about the close-ups: Small, Claustrophobic Maps. In Your Face Action. A Team. This is what I mean by Intimacy - Call of Duty is more intimate, and Battlefield is more large-scale. I'm a fan of small scale, 5-on-5 strategic battles. This makes me uncomfortable with the large-scale, 32+ man Battlefield games. Based on this, I prefer Call of Duty. You might prefer Battlefield. And that's okay. One last thing to note is that historically Call of Duty has always shipped with a Single-player story-based component, and more recently, a co-op component as well. Battlefield has not always had a story-based single-player component. Bad Company 2 has a good single-player component, which is one reason I purchased it. Battlefield 3 does have a single-player and co-op component. Their History and Future Battlefield came first, in September 2002. Call of Duty came out a year later, in October of 2003. Battlefield has shipped 11 Games, while Call of Duty has shipped 8. They've both been very successful. The Battlefield series has been quite stable, and will continue to be so. It is EA's flagship title in the modern warfare category, and as such, they are investing a lot into the series. Battlefield's Battlelog is a testament to this - a self-developed community platform with free voice chat support - quite revolutionary for an FPS shooter (although there are precedents, such as Quake Live). Battlefield is here to stay. The Call of Duty franchise has historically been quite stable since the first Call of Duty. However, ever since the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, there's been trouble. The trouble started with the lack of dedicated server or mod support in Modern Warfare 2. This truly was a step backwards in the PC gaming community. The reason dedicated servers are so critical to the PC community is because player-hosted servers are 1) Horrible due to limited internet speed and varied computers/processing power, and 2) Give the player hosting an unfair advantage in terms of latency. The community left player-hosted servers a long time ago in favor of dedicated servers. The lack of Mod Support was highly disappointing as well, since mods increase the life of a game, and allow communities to customize a game to their liking. The second fumble came with Infinity Ward's split. Dubbed "The Biggest Break Up in Video Game History", Infinity Ward lost a lot of developers, and its Key leaders, Jason West and Vince Zampella. The team that left has formed Respawn Entertainment, with help from EA. (I cannot wait to see what they come out with.) This to me is more cause for concern than the lack of dedicated servers in CoD: MW2. Losing the key players who contributed to the series' success since day 1 will have a big impact. Modern Warfare 3 was worked on by the remainder of Infinity Ward, and two other studios, Sledgehammer games and Raven Software. The addition of two other studios shows to me that Activision is taking their game seriously, and is doing its best to see it succeed. Watching the latest videos, my "Gamer Sense" tells me that this game will not be better than Modern Warfare 2 in terms of quality. However, Activision has indeed put its best efforts forward to make the game successful, and has more games planned. Call of Duty is not going away anytime soon. The Winner So who wins? The answer: Both of them. They have different audiences. While they will have fans in common, they are different games. Battlefield will continue to appeal to the "Huge Massive Large Scale Warfare" fans, but Call of Duty will continue to appeal to the "In Your Face Action" fans. They both have had a stable and consistent past, and will continue to be on the horizon for years to come. My advice? Pick your favorite, and stick with it. Don't let the reviews sway you. Update, 11/3/2011, 11:23am EST: I had wrongly listed the number of Battlefield games as 18 - it is actually 11 with 8 expansion packs. Thanks to rawrjoeynashomg for the feedback!