Separation of Video Games and State

“Computer and video games need to be defended from stringent government regulations, as they continue to be a punching bag for multiple elected officials. Enough is enough! Stand up for games, and if you’re 18 or over, join the network to ensure that games remain self-regulated.”

‘Nuff said. Join the Video Game Voter’s Network.

Slacker Ratings-Obsessed Media Ruins Nation

Hardly a news flash, but:

Last week I was talking to my Mom and I mentioned something about Dodd being awesome again, and she said, “That’s nice, but how am I supposed to know anything about him?”  WHAT?!?  “You can go to his very informative website, read, and watch videos!!!”  I couldn’t believe it.  “But nobody knows who he is!”  “SO READ HIS SITE.  Then you can tell your friends that you’re really impressed and tell THEM to read the site.”

The media so completely destroys the politically competent because people are too busy with their own obvious concerns.  Politics should be an obvious concern, but it barely registers for most people, or I think Dodd would be doing much better.  Fighting the republicans is hard as hell even when they serve up their own disaster on a platter, but fighting for a media that does what it’s supposed to do looks even harder.  We watch CNN every morning just so we can see how even non-FOX mainstream distorts everything, and generally ignores the most important stories.  We leave the house fuming every day.

Worth spreading around.

Cheney in 94 explaining EXACTLY why invading Iraq was a terrible idea. It matches today to the letter.

I’ll be psyched next time he wraps himself in the flag so it’ll be easier to [GIVE HIM A GREAT BIG HUG] until he [BECOMES EXTREMELY HAPPY] from the shear force of my [BOUNDLESS LOVE]. I wonder if they’ll read this?

O Superman

From PopMatters:
“Remastered for the 25th anniversary of its original release, Laurie Anderson’s debut remains a uniquely compelling and surprisingly timeless statement on life in the modern world.”

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/46827/laurie-anderson-big-science/

Put on the headphones, click on the sample links, close your eyes and imagine you’re a senior in college, laying on the couch in a roach infested 3rd floor rooming house on a Saturday night with no money and the last few crumbs from the 1/4 oz. you’ve been hoarding for a week smoldering in the one-hitter on the cable spool coffee table and you’ll know why this album made flunking out of school bearable.

Great Customer Service from Snapfish

My wife signed up for Snapfish some time ago, originally during their partnership with Earthlink, and has always been fond of it. The only problem has been their Mac support was a bit behind Internet Explorer. Yeah, not much of a surprise…

Last week we got an email offering a free photo album, expect the software to build a photo album is Windows only. So we sent them an email saying “thanks for the offer, but we can’t use it”.

After just a few days, they replied with 30 free prints and free shipping.

That’s not easy. Promotions like that are usually handled by Marketing teams and datamining and big email campaigns.

To get a response beyond “sorry” was a real surprise, and looks to me that they have a motivated team with the freedom to Make the Call–a focus on customer satisfaction not rigid policy. We’ll be their customer for a long time I think.

Second Life in AJAX

And open-sourced. Pretty cool, if only as an experiment:http://blog.katharineberry.co.uk/category/ajaxlife/And the developer? She’s a teenager. Outstanding.

Cuz the Patriot Act isn’t strong enough

From TPM:

In a little-noticed executive order issued on Tuesday, President Bush directed the Treasury Department to block the U.S.-based financial assets of anyone deemed to have threatened “the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq” or who “undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq.”

It’s not going to stop, is it?

Cool music search and play

Listening Post–one of Wired’s million blogs–writes about SeeqPod. Using your browser (including for your mobile), you search for songs or artists and SeeqPod searches the net for MP3s:

…search for any artist and play their songs within seconds, for free. SeeqPod doesn’t transcode the music as it streams, so you hear it in its original form as scraped from MP3 blogs, personal web pages, and anywhere else on the internet that hosts MP3s.

Very cool.

Mac gamers* rejoice

From MacMinute:

Gears of War, UT 3 for Mac confirmed
July 16, 2007 – 12:17 EDT According to a report on Inside Mac Games today, Epic Game’s VP Mark Rein announced “that a Mac version of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 are heading to the platform. Rein enthusiastically announces in the video, ‘And don’t forget, we’re also doing Macintosh. Yes, Gears is coming to the Mac and so is UT.’” Further information is available from IMG.

After playing Gears on Mr. Dahlen’s 360, I gotta say I loved it. I sucked at it, but I really enjoyed it. What got me was the subtly of combat. You don’t run in full steam with rocket launchers akimbo. You use speed, cover, and battlefield awareness to protect yourself and take out your opponent. Can’t wait.

And the Unreal franchise has never disappointed me; UT has provided some of my fondest multiplayer memories. Unreal 2 was more than my POS PC could handle, and crashed it mercilessly, but what I got to play I thoroughly enjoyed. Once I get Parallels 3 running, I’ll have to install Unreal 2 and give it another go.

* No, “Mac Gamer” is not an oxymoron, thank you very much. Granted, I can’t play HL2 and that pisses me off. Well, until now anyway.

Let’s get sci-fi

Just a thought as I was reading this in the New York Times:

The administration, [Former Surgeon General Richard H.] Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

So the scenario is: You go back in time to Inauguration Day, 2001, and tell your former self about Bush administration history, 2001-2007. Knowing that, wouldn’t your 2001 self support impeachment as a matter of duty and policy, overriding any potential political implications?