Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Can facts be patented?

(via The Consumerist)
I did not know this.  Apparently Metabolite has a patent on the fact “The level of an amino acid called homocysteine is measured in a patient’s blood or urine and, if elevated, it can be correlated with a deficiency of folic acid, or B12.”  And there is a lawsuit against the company Laboratory Testing Company for violating this patent.  Also, supposedly I’ve broken the law by quoting that fact.
The Supreme Court has to decide the following question:

if a doctor looks at a patient’s test results and even thinks that sentence, has he broken the law?

I don’t have much faith in our courts to make a good decision here, but we’ll see.

[tags]Patents, Metabolite[/tags]

One key gaming

Reading the latest issue of PCGamer, I was reminded of an experiment initiated with the intention of giving more people with physical handicaps and disabilities the option to play games. The end result of this experiment is a set of games which are playable with only a single key. As surprising as this might sound to some gamers, these are some good games, and they can be surprisingly challenging and engaging. If you want to try some of these out, start with these listed in the April 2006 issue of PCGamer.

  1. Oneswitch Ballz – Simply enough, you just have to control a ball travelling a path. The spacebar makes the ball jump. The challenge comes in when you start hitting floor tiles that change your direction, speed, and even the height of your jump.
  2. Mini-Golf One Button Style – As the name implies, this is mini-golf played with a single key. As with any other mini-golf game, you just need to try to sink the putt. In this game, though, you only have one key to press to set the direction of travel and the force of the hit. This is actually the first game in the one-button set of games that I ever heard about.
  3. 1Key Case Ship – You control a space ship travelling in this side-scrolling cave traversal game. Pressing your key makes the ship go up. Releasing it stops the upward force until gravity pulls the ship back down. It sounds easy, but it can be very tough to avoid crashing.
  4. Strange Attractors – You turn your “gravity drive” on and off with a key-press. When it is on, you are pulled towards celestial objects. When it is off, you free-float along the trajectory gained from gravity. Your goal is the exit gate on the other side of the screen.
  5. Shades of Doom – Described in PCGamer as a non-graphical first-person shooter, in Shades of Doom you are blind. Try this out and see how well you do when you have to rely on sounds.

EDIT: I forgot to mention in the original post, but if you enjoy these and want to see more one-key games, hit the OneSwitch site.
[tags]One-key gaming, games[/tags]

Judge makes nonsense decision, supreme court won’t reconsider

(via BoingBoing)

The obscenity section of the Communications Decency Act (hereafter CDA) bans publishing “obscene” material on the net. Unfortunately, according to this wonderfully moronic act, “obscene” is determined by “local standards” in the courts. That means someone hosting porn in California can be sued by someone living in Puritinicaville, FL (actual name – Ave Maria, FL) for hosting obscene material. For those that haven’t heard of this Internet thing, it turns out it is world wide. But any potentially obscene material hosted online and originating in the US now gets judged by the most conservative , puritanical communities rather than by the site of origin or at a nationally set guidance level. Any material online is obscene if any community declares it obscene.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has declined to overturn this decision by lower courts. The site where I first saw this story, BoingBoing, has links to a social network style site named SuicideGirls (not safe for work). Under the CDA, a lot of what shows up on SuicideGirls would be considered obscene to some people. Now, thanks to the CDA and the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to overturn the lower courts’ decisions, a site like SuicideGirls could go off the air so to speak. Or at least outside the country.

I’m not suggesting that anyone, anywhere on the Internet should be able to post anything they want. But restricting all content to the most prudish members of our society might be worse than letting the most depraved determine what is acceptable. If we as a nation are going to put limits on Internet content, it needs to be restricted according to some defined national levels. As bad as our government is about determining things like this, I still think those at the federal level could do a better job setting a baseline standard than we will do letting any community decide.

Of course, better yet is getting rid of the CDA, but that’s not likely to happen in the heavily conservative court we now have.

[tags]CDA, Communications Decency Act[/tags]

C’mon, you conspiracy theorists, you know you want some!

(via Tingilinde)

Are you looking for that fashionable tin-foil cap or a cleverely disguised EMF-guarding camisole (because even when you want to look nice, you want to be protected from all that bad EMF!)? Maybe you just want a faraday cage screen so you’ll sleep better at night? Well, folks, worry no more. Now you can find these, and more, at LessEMF.com.

emf-glove.JPG What we have here is an emf-apron.JPGEMF-shielded glove, sure to protect your hands from all those nasty emissions your computer puts out. If that style doesn’t suite you, maybe you need one of these handy EMF aprons instead. Of course, you could suit up in both, throw on a EMF shielded baseball cap, and you’ll be styling AND safe from those bad, pesky, scary rays that are flying around us every moment. Oooooooh! Just head on over there and pick up all your clothes. And be safe to use your computer and cell phone again!
[tags]EMF Shielding, sarcasm[/tags]

Wicked lasers

I have another cool post to make soon about lasers (high powered burn-your-doll’s eyes out lasers), but I wanted to point these out while I have them open in my browser. If you’ve ever wanted a laser that’s just a little bit different than what everyone else has, check out Wicked Lasers.

Pretty much everyone owns red laser pointers. You’ve tried every method imaginable to see that red laser beam. But, you’ve never had the actual power until now. Wicked Lasers grants you the ability to shoot a red laser beam, green laser beam, or even blue laser beam from your laser pointer.

There’s even a link to a low-res (4 meg) or hi-res (18 meg) video from FOX TV.  The down side is the price – $99 to $999.  But if you have $999 to spend, you can get a blue laser pointer.  That’s what I want.  Because I’m a big geeky boy who is impressed by shiney things.

[tags]Lasers, laser pointers, geek tech[/tags]

ASUS dual-core widescreen laptop

(via TechEBlog)

I like to game. I want a good laptop. If I had the money, I’d probably get something a lot like this:

At 7.5 pounds, the ASUS W2J boasts a vibrant 17-inch TFT (WSXGA+) display that’s perfect for watching digital TV via the built-in DVB-T tuner. This laptop can handle any application, thanks to its speedy Intel Centrino Core Duo T2500 2.0GHz processor, 1024MB of DDR II 667 SDRAM memory, 120GB HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB (512MB HyperMemory), and slot-loading DVD Super Multi drive. The W2J is available now at the price of $3,157.

asus_dualk.jpg

The only thing I could really wish were changed is the video. I prefer nVidia.  And maybe a 19-inch screen.  But that might be asking to much
[tags]ASUS, Dual-Core laptop, widescreen laptop,geek tech[/tags]

M-Brid pocket movie player

(via TechEBlog)
I just had my birthday. When my wife asked what I wanted for my birthday, I didn’t know. If I had known about this, I would have asked for one. It is t3h secksay to me.

Similar in size to Apple’s iPod, the M-Brid Pocket Movie Player features a 2.2-inch LCD display, 4GB hard drive, and support for a variety of video/audio formats. An integrated d-pad makes navigating the interface a breeze. Pricing and availablity have not yet been announced.

Well, there is that pricing and availability have not yet been announced issue, too. But it sure is pretty.

new_pocket_player.jpg

[tags]PMP, M-Brid, Pocket movie player[/tags]

Further proof that next-gen optical formats are horrid

(via CDFreaks)

In case you had any thoughts about buying a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player as soon as the first such devices hit the street, please reconsider.  The first generation of these new hi-definition formats will not be fully functional:

As HD-DVD and Blu-ray are getting ready for their launch under the interim license agreement for AACS copy protection, all the first round of players launched under this agreement will not offer any managed copy support, regardless of what interfaces the player may have and no firmware updates will be made available to offer such support either.  Basically, all players released under the interim license will function as basic players.

“But Randy,” you may say, “I don’t plan on copying next-gen optical media.  Why would I care if managed copy support is not available?”

Well, for one, leaving out this feature means the devices are not specification-level complete.  I personally have no use for hardware that is released before a spec is complete and functionally buildable.  Furthermore, once the spec is finalized, these first-gen devices won’t be upgradeable.  If anything changes in the spec that requires certain managed copy support features to be present, you’ll have a high-end paperweight which will be unable to play the media it was purchased to play.

In the finalised AACS specification, a minimum level of managed copy support will be mandatory.  Despite early concerns about Blu-ray’s additional copy protection layers – BD Plus and ROM Mark, these should not directly affect the format’s ability to handle managed copy.  Users who are interested in equipment supporting managed copy are advised to wait until the time comes when the AACS spec is finalised and players start supporting this.

Sure, I’m probably over-reacting.  But media companies don’t care about consumers.  If there was concern for consumers, the Sony rootkit fiasco never would have happened.  Don’t let these companies sell you something that isn’t complete.  Don’t give your money up for equipment based on unfinished specifications unless the hardware you buy is guaranteed upgradeable to final specifications.  Don’t let the companies get away with screwing early adopters just to get hardware out by an announced deadline.  Demand finished products, especially when the device is supposedly better than what you have now.  Wait for final specifications before you put down your money.

[tags]HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, consumer abuse[/tags]

Verbatim launches undersized flash drives in goofy cases, claims people want less

(via CDFreaks)

CHARLOTTE, NC (March 21, 2006) – Verbatim® Corporation, the worldwide leader in CD and DVD media, announced today an exciting new storage solution, the Verbatim16MB FlashDisc™. The innovative FlashDisc is not only a brand new product, it forms the basis for an entirely new flash-based media category. Developed by M-Systems, the Verbatim FlashDisc will be available in April. With an MSRP of only $19.99 for a 3-pack, the new media is set to revolutionize the way consumers, students and office workers exchange photos, music and other digital data files.

Now read that and pay attention. Verbatim wants you to buy 3 USB flash drives with 16 Meg each. You will be expected to pay $20 for them. To some, that might not seem bad. To me, it’s just crazy. But the press release has more of an explanation for the drives:

Verbatim’s FlashDisc is ideal for users who simply want a low-cost way to transport modest-capacity digital files from one computer to another or to share files on a disc that doesn’t necessarily have to be returned. Students can keep multiple FlashDiscs for each class subject and can access the information any time, anywhere. People of all ages can use FlashDiscs to distribute photos or favorite songs to friends and family. Businesses can share data and presentations with colleagues.

In other words, you are expected to swap these USB drives to share data. You should feel like they are inexpensive enough that you won’t care about getting the drive back. And naturally, you’ll buy many 3 packs so you have enough spares to do that. Now for the next kink in what’s wrong with this silly idea, check out what these drives look like.

verbatim-dumbflash.jpg

Now, imagine carrying around half a dozen of these. These drives have a swing-open/click-shut cover for the USB interface, and a big, ugly ring-like plastic cover over the rest of them. Presumably, this is to make us think of these as small discs, instead of overpriced USB drives. But it also makes them big, and not easy to carry around.

I’m constantly amazed at what sells well and what doesn’t. I could be way out of line here, and these might be the next hot thing. But I assure you, I’m not paying $7 for 16 Meg of USB key storage only to give the drive to someone else and not worry about whether or not I get it back. That’s just not sensible.

Be sure to read the entire press release at CDFreaks if you are interested.  And feel free to tell me if I’m way off-base here on how these will sell.  Maybe everyone else in the world sees sufficient value in these for them to survive, and I’ll be proven wrong once again.

[tags]Verbatim, Dumb consumer devices, USB key[/tags]

Newly announced Internet Explorer vulnerability

(via Computer World)

This appears to be very new, and hasn’t spread very far yet on the web.  There is a just announced security vulnerability in IE 6.0 that allows an attacker to run an HTML application without requesting user permission.  The Dutch Web developer who discovered the problem contacted Microsoft first, at least, so hopefully there aren’t many attacks out there yet.  On the other hand, who knows how long the attackers have known about this?  It wouldn’t be the first time an attack is discovered and announced only for us to find out that the underground was already passing around info and code about/for the vulnerability.

Last week I found a (to my knowledge) new vulnerability in the Internet Explorer 6.0 browser.

With this vulnerability it is possible to run an hta-file without the users permission.

[tags]Microsoft, Internet Explorer, web security[/tags]

Metareview of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach

This directly from Joystiq.  I want to make some comments here, too.  I want to try DDO:Stormreach.  I’m a longtime D&D gamer, and the thought of teaming online with hopefully easy to assemble teams sounds promising.  But I can’t handle the thought of an MMO with almost no single-player content and no reward until quest completion.

I know, MMO is massively multi-player, which many people assumes means you have to team.  But I don’t always have the time to wait during team building and then run a full mission/quest.  In DDO:Stormreach, you don’t get experience until the end of the mission.  That means if I can’t commit to an hour or two, I can’t advance.  If I wait for team building, I could easily eat up 30+ minutes of my play time.  If the mission takes an hour, I’m usually over my gametime budget then.  In DDO:Stormreach, that means I gain nothing.

So DDO:Stormreach is clearly not built for a casual gamer like me.  I had a similar problem with Diablo II when it came out.  Sometimes, I can go days or weeks with no more than 10-15 minutes play time at any time.  In Diablo II, that meant I couldn’t finish the game (and often couldn’t even complete some quests or reach certain checkpoints) until I have a long block of game time available.  In DDO:Stormreach that means I shouldn’t even start the game unless I have a long block of time.  In Diablo II, at least I earned experience for my game time, so I made some progress in my limited time in game.

Now, having said that, let’s just see a quick blip of what Joystiq showed in their metareview:

Hit the links for more details, and be sure to read the full Joystiq article for their comments, as well.

[tags]DDO, DDO:Stormreach, MMORPG, Dungeons and Dragons Online[/tags]

More eye candy

I like how the previous post looked.  I think I need to do a few more.  My favorite of these is first, but it’s so hard to pick just one.  Honestly, though, that third one doesn’t look quite right for her face.  But I can’t quite say why.

jgarner-alias01.jpg

jgarner_elektra04.jpg

jgarner_elektra3.jpg

jgarner-elektra02.jpg

jgarner-reddress.jpg

[tags]Jennifer Garner[/tags]