This is pretty cool. Fine example of a WW II Enigma cipher machine in a very good condition and a great history; full functional on eBay. 100% Original!!!
Month: March 2006
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Videogame videos
A half hour Google Video of Will Wright talking about ‘Spore’, which looks to be an outstandingly wonderfully deep videogame. Could this be one of the greatest video game ever?
The description of greatest videogame has been used for almost all of the many Legend of Zelda games that have been produced over the years. Fans of the series have decided that it is time for it to cross over into the realm of the movie.
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So this is how democracy dies.
Not only a common misquote of the line from the Revenge of the Sith
So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause
it’s a genuine sentiment expressed by critics, such as Henry Porter of The Observer, of the Government’s Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.
The ‘reform’ in the title allows ministers to make laws without the scrutiny of parliament and, in some cases, to delegate that power to unelected officials. In every word, dot and comma, it bears the imprint of New Labour’s authoritarian paternity.
Rather than the thunderous applause that accompanies the death of liberty in the Star Wars Empire the death of democracy seems to be with a thunderous silence as the bill has slipped under the radar of the British public.
If ever there were a piece of legislation to ensure the United Kingdom’s traversal through the event horizon of the Panopticon Singularity it is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.
I’m probably far too paranoid and could possibly even be wrong given the almost impenetrable legalese used in parliamentary bills about the implications of the bill. However it would seem to me that this bill sets the ideal stage from which to modify not only existing legislation but legislation yet to be passed due to various obstacles being placed in the government’s way such as the current situation with the Identity Card bill. The government can make any necessary concessions to ensure the bill gets passed and then modify any legislation introduced by such a bill back to a form they would have liked in the first place but that parliament didn’t approve of.
According to Murky.org the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill was discussed on Law in Action on BBC Radio 4. From Murky’s transcript of the programme comes the following quote from Cambridge Professor of Law, John Spencer QC plus a comment from Murky.
It is unbelievably dangerous. It means potentially marginalising parliament. It moves us a big step toward the elected dictatorship every five years, it’s a step toward a system under which the only break that we have on our ministers is the fact that there’s a general election every five years. (He seems to overlook the fact that even this may not be guaranteed, as, if I recall correctly, the five years is set by the parliament act, which is itself changable by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act – Murk)
As if I don’t already have enough paranoid nightmares at the moment.
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DRM a load of CRAP
ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind suggests that CRAP or Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection, is a catchier phrase than DRM – Digital Rights Management. Why does he think this technology is crap? See the video of his explanation.
BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow wrote an angry letter to American Airlines following a security check that he believed exceeded sense and decency.
This has now been hilariously remixed with the premise of the forthcoming Samuel L. Jackson movie Snakes on a Plane in the following Metafilter thread.
Tags: security
UMN News: Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study
American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
My first thought bizarrely to this was I wonder how atheists would rank against other American bogeymen such as the French, communists or even terrorists. Why is it that atheists are seen as a threat to the American way of life?
Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.
This is probably the answer to my question and I believe that the study’s respondents have been misled or misinformed. Lack of belief in deities does not mean that one is lacking in morals. I believe that you don’t need religious doctrine to tell you how to lead a moral life.
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The Hutchison Effect (Antigravity)
An experiment in antigravity and this here is an experiment in embedding Google Video content in this site.
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Neverending Zombie Carnage
Paul Robertson is an artist who produces work that harks back to the days of 8-bit graphics videogames.
Tags: art
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Film fans get permanent downloads
BBC News: Film fans get permanent downloads
Fans will pay £19.99 for a DVD of their chosen film plus two digital copies to keep indefinitely – one for their home computer and one for a portable device.
Universal said it could “completely revolutionise” how people watch movies.
However users will not be able to burn copies of the films to DVD themselves and the files will be compatible only with PCs and Windows software.
I’ll be surprised if this actually comes to fruition. It sounds like a fine idea and I’m sure a number of people if asked would say this is something they’d be interested in but in reality I think there would be little take up of the service. People don’t necessarily want to purchase digital copies of their movies they just want to watch movies they purchased when and where they want and on whatever device they choose. This might mean purchasing a digital file or it might mean ripping the content off the DVD they bought previously.
BoingBoing reveals that Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word “super-hero” from the public domain. They pick up on a suggestion made by Warren Ellis.
Let’s never use the term “super-hero” to describe a Marvel character. Let’s call them “underwear perverts”.
This really pisses me off as the only reason why they should be trying to trademark a term which is so generic is to stifle competition. It is blatant anti-competitive practice. Also bizarre given that DC Comics amongst others existed and were using the term superhero long before Marvel Comics published their first ‘underwear pervert’ comic book.
In fact DC is also in on the trademark claim.
Tags: comics