G3

So there seems to be some interesting stuff that happened in the tech law realm this year. c|net news has an article entitled “Unexpected twists in Internet law” that is quite interesting. Topics include:

• The antispam bill (which is deceptively named The Can-Spam Act of 2003)
• The courts deciding not to kill popups. (1, 2, and 3 times)
• Record industries losing some battles.
• A potentially nifty Truth in Domain Names Act
• The courts letting the Internet Tax Freedom Act expire on November 1st

Give it a read, you may be surprised at some of the stuff that passed and failed.

One law I didn’t see in that article that looked interesting was the Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003, which led to this bit on recycling tech gadgets.

And for some laughs, check out the “101 Ways to Save the Internet” article by Wired Magazine. It’s a full list of 101, but it’s quite amusing … so read it over lunch or something. :-p

In an attempt to get some more variety in my geeky hobby, and in a moment of weakness, I bought myself a GameCube. Turns out, it wasn’t that bad an idea at all. Tristy and her friends had fun with Mario Kart: Double Dash, which I may also say, is very addicting. The main difference between this one is you can be on the same kart together, so one of you drives, while the other one throws things at the other drivers. Add a little Super Monkey Ball (Stupid name, great game), and you have two games that are great for little parties with nothing else to do.

My own personal reasons for getting it, had to do with all the Resident Evil titles being re-released for it, the Star Wars titles, and for the GameBoy Advance attachment so that I can play the sequal to the game that got me addicted in the first place: Final Fantasy Tactics. There is something to be said about things like Zelda and Metroid that are Nintendo Exclusive.

I have also heard great things about Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and I’m thinking about getting that, my only question is, for the PS2 or the GameCube?

A new 3D model viewer called ViewPod leverages Macromedia Flash to display 3D models directly in your browser.

The folks at Trauma Studios are using it to show off some of their Desert Combat vehicle models in ViewPod now.

Will ViewPod stand the test of time? The above link has gotten nearly 27 million hits at the time of this writing… it would seem that leveraging Flash without the need for a proprietary 3D viewer plug-in was a pretty good idea.

A Chinese gamer playing RedMoon, China’s answer to EverCrack got his virtual l00t “stolen” by a hacker. Two years of character development (and $1200 in gaming subscription fees) went down the tubes.

What to do? Sue the game company to get that Amulet of Thwacking back, naturally.

Chinese Gamer Sues For L00t

The amazing part? He won the lawsuit. Happy Thwacking.

id Software’s Doom was a big deal in its day. As far as FPS’s go, it was the best thing on the PC at the time, to be sure. (Bungie’s Marathon on the Mac was far superior, IMHO.)

In spite of its success, the game plot for Doom really, really sucked: You’re a space marine and we accidentally opened a gateway to hell. Now go kill everything.

What would be really unfortunate is if somebody tried to make a comic book based on Doom. Naturally, somebody did.

Here are a few of my favorite dialog gems:

“I’ve got a handful of vertebrae and a head full of mad!”
“You are huge! That means you have huge guts! Rip and tear!”
“Gah! Radioactive waste! Burns! Stinks!”

Funny how it never became a collectors item.

Got sand?

As part of the initiatives for more transparency in government, the National Transportation Safety Board posts reports of airplane crashes on its website. These records include forensic summaries of crash victims and a probable cause of the accident.

This particular airplane crash in Rainbow Lake, Florida was due to “THE PILOT IN COMMAND’S IMPROPER INFLIGHT DECISION TO DIVERT HER ATTENTION TO OTHER ACTIVITIES NOT RELATED TO THE CONDUCT OF THE FLIGHT. ”

I’d not want to be the one to give that particular eulogy.
Hopefully they at least died… happy.

The notion of Irreducible Complexity describes a system where all subsystems must be completely functional for the supersystem to be functional. In short: If a piece is broken, the whole thing is broken.

The realm of biology is full of examples where multiple interdependent subsystems must be functioning for an organism to live. These kinds of organic systems are evidence of some pretty intelligent design work, because the subsystems have no viable functionality outside of the supersystem.

This kind of intelligent design is everywhere in nature; nature points to the fact we are designed by God, and not just accidental decendents of primordial soupians.
(more…)

Gary Price points out that in their quest to become the command line of the Internet, Google has added a buch of new new features.

One of the newer features is the Search By Number option. You can now enter UPS (1Z1234567891234567) and FedEx (fedex 999999999999), patent (patent 5123123), airplane (n199ua), and FCC equipment (fcc B4Z-34009-PIR) ID and/or tracking numbers.

There’s also the Travel Conditions feature that’s quite nifty. For instance, do you wanna know about the conditions at the Colorado Springs Airport?
Just type: cos airport

Read more on Gary’s take on the new Google stuff.

Gun shoots around corners…wonder when it will make it into Battlefield 1942.

So, when are you getting fitted for your prosthetic borg implant? Or better hope for people with spinal injuries.

An engineered cross between the polio virus and the common cold fights brain cancer. Just don’t screw up, boys and girls.

ForeverPet. Clone Fido and keep him around forever.