Posted by Les on 09/08/2008 at 11:08 AM. Read 33 times. Tags: blogging
Nobody has made a donation in several months and I’m hoping that we’re stable enough financially to be able to handle the web hosting costs without help so I took the donation section down. I did move the Google Ads up to fill that spot for the time being seeing as they are generating a little bit of income, though not enough to support the site anytime soon.
Just a FYI.
Oh, and at some point I plan to go through and revise the SEB Cafe Press store that most of you have probably forgotten we have. If any of you are particularly creative and have ideas for T-shirts you’re dieing to try out, well, we could use a few new designs.
Out of the (currently) 230 reviews for Spore at Amazon.com some 199 of them are 1 star and the comments make it clear this is due entirely to the SecuROM DRM. Some of the comments include insights such as:
This type of DRM with not stand, man
Do not treat your customers as “Criminals First”. The DRM has already been cracked and is online anyway, so what was the point, seriously? The only people who are being punished is those of us who actually pay for quality games.
NO DRM! - Jason C. Roskam
A sentiment I agree with completely.
DRM is a no go
Their DRM copy protection is outrageous. Limiting to 3 installs for a full price PC game is not going to cut it. They are inconveniencing their customers for a game many have anticipated for many years. To prove the folly of gimping their official disc, I think I’ll pass for now. My pirated copy will keep me busy in the interim.
NO THANK YOU EA!
You’d think someone at EA would take note of the fact that their DRM has actually driven at least one person to the pirated game, but chances are they’ll just use it as an excuse for why they need DRM.
Personally I’m torn once again. I really was looking forward to this game as was everyone in my family to the extent that we were seriously considering buying three copies at some point because we’re all going to want to play it at the same time. That’d be a total of $150 from one household alone, but the presence of SecuROM and the three install limit bugs the shit out of me. I’ve only played a small amount of Bioshock because I refused to buy it for the PC due to the SecuROM and was limited to trying it at a friend’s house. It’s finally coming out for the PS3, but I don’t tend to care for playing FPS games on a console (much prefer keyboard and mouse) so Ken Levine will probably never see a dime from me for his excellent game. Now I’m seriously thinking I won’t be buying Spore either because of the DRM and that’s seriously disappointing. I doubt EA will get the message as it’ll probably still sell well enough for them to consider it a success, but badly enough that they can jump up and down about the problem of piracy. For legit customers it’s a no-win situation.
If we needed more proof that being employed by the TSA sends some people on a power trip there’s this news item to consider:
Claiming he was a federal agent couldn’t keep a Chicago man from being arrested at Great American Ball Park on Saturday.
According to court records, when a concession employees working the View Level refused to serve Rafael Rosario, 26, he asked two more times.
When Cincinnati Police asked to see Rosario’s I.D., he tensed up and claimed he was a federal agent and the officer had no right to see his I.D. Records show Rosario is employed by the Transportation Safety Administration at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
The police arrested him under the charge of disorderly conduct while intoxicated and being a total asshat. I guess all that bossing around at the airport made him think it applied out in the real world as well.
One of the bigger problems we’re beginning to face is the rise of drug resistant bacteria thanks to an overuse of antibioctics. MRSA is a particularly nasty bug that has been increasingly causing problems around the world and may be a sign of things to come. Now new research seems to indicate that Marijuana may be useful in killing it:
Researchers in Italy and the U.K. tested five major marijuana chemicals called cannabinoids on different strains of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). All five showed germ-killing activity against the MRSA strains in lab tests. Some synthetic cannabinoids also showed germ-killing capability. The scientists note the cannabinoids kill bacteria in a different way than traditional antibiotics, meaning they might be able to bypass bacterial resistance.
At least two of the cannabinoids don’t have mood-altering effects, so there could be a way to use these substances without creating the high of marijuana.
[...] In the study, published in the Journal of Natural Products, researchers call for further study of the antibacterial uses of marijuana. There are “currently considerable challenges with the treatment of infections caused by strains of clinically relevant bacteria that show multi-drug resistance,” the researchers write. New antibacterials are urgently needed, but only one new class of antibacterial has been introduced in the last 30 years. “Plants are still a substantially untapped source of antimicrobial agents,” the researchers conclude.
If the study is backed up by further replications then weed may finally have a reason to be at least partially legalized, though the form of any drugs created from it would probably not be such that you’d smoke it. Just the same there are laws that would have to be repealed in order to move forward with it as a medical treatment. Considering the threat posed by MRSA this is a welcome discovery indeed.
In a rare Sunday release you can now pick up Spore from a retailer near you. It seems to be netting scores in the 8 - 9 range and a lot of people are wondering why it’s not getting 10’s considering all the lavish pre-release hype it got. The folks over at MTV Multiplayer did an interview with Will Wright to get his reaction to the reviews:
I read Wright that Times paragraph and this is what he said:
“I haven’t read that, but it’s interesting. The feedback we’re getting from people is that everyone has some level they like and some level they don’t like. A lot of the reviews I’ve read have said that the Space Stage was far and away the best and they were disappointed by the earlier stages because they were too simple. Other people have said the Creature Stage is their favorite and that the Space Stage seems too complicated. We knew, since we were using different genres with every level, that everyone would have ones they really clicked with and ones they didn’t. We’ve pretty much seen that. There hasn’t been any consistent feedback. Some people have said the Civ phase is the best.”
When I talked to Wright, I had played deep into the Space Stage, which I was enjoying. But I had seen complaints from hardcore game reviewers and message board posters that all of the stages have less complex gameplay than many gamers had hoped. As wonderful as the content creation and sharing options are, the one consistent complaint I’ve seen is that the gameplay seems to have been “dumbed down” for the sake of appealing to a more casual audience. Was it?
“I’d say that’s quite accurate,” Wright told me. “We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. “Spore” has more depth than, let’s say, “The Sims” did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for “Sims 2″, which was around 90, and something like “Half-Life“, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of “Sims 2″ than the Metacritic and sales of “Half-Life.”
Considering the fact that The Sims and The Sims 2 are two of the best selling titles of all time I can’t say that his approach is a bad one to take with Spore. I won’t be writing a review of it anytime soon as it’ll be awhile before I can swing a copy. Anne’s still looking for a job since the move so we’re living on a shoestring budget, but we hope to pick the game up as soon as money isn’t quite so tight. We’ve had great fun with the creature creator so far and I can’t wait to put some of them through their paces in the actual game.
Justin Crawford of HOP Studios has created a new anti-comment spam module combo for ExpressionEngine that makes use of the Defensio service and we’re giving it a go here at SEB. It’s similar to Akismet in most respects, but gives a little more control over how comments are handled. So for the moment I’ve disabled Akismet and enabled Defensio and we’ll see how it goes. We get a fair amount of comment spam here so it shouldn’t be too long before we know if it works better or worse than Akismet.
As always, let me know if anything looks wonky or doesn’t work.
John McCain was in Concord, NH on Tuesday apparently doing an Q&A at a high school. During that Q&A a student by the name of William Sleaster challenged McCain on his stance on gay rights. McCain first tried to dodge the question, but the plucky student wouldn’t have it:
Sleaster pressed on. “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”
“I do not,” McCain answered. “I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”
“So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”
“I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain said diplomatically.
Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country’s need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.
Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.
“You have one more? Go ahead you’re doing good,” McCain encouraged.
“I came here looking to see a leader,” Sleaster said. “I don’t.”
To his credit McCain kept his temper in check and told the kid “I understand. I thank you. That’s what America is all about.”
Perhaps some might see Sleaster’s response as rude, but it was honest and probably something McCain should hear more often. If nothing else it’s good to see at least one member of the next generation taking a stand.
In an apparent attempt to dissuade the few remaining people willing to travel on their airline the folks at Continental have introduced a $15 charge for your first checked bag:
The fee applies immediately to tickets bought for destinations in the United States and to flights between the United States and Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada for travel starting on or after October 7.
Continental said the fee will not apply to its “EliteAccess” customers, travelers on full-fare economy tickets, or to military personnel and their families on official orders.
That’s in addition to a $25 fee for a second checked bag. Soon they’ll have a $30 oxygen fee and you’ll have to fly naked or face another $25 fee. Fuck Continental Airlines. I’ll fucking walk.
At one point Tuesday night during the Republican convention they had a video featuring 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone reading an essay she wrote about the Pledge of Allegiance. It featured all sorts of patriotic imagery and the young woman talking about how, when she recites the pledge, she’s there with the Founding Fathers and she signs the Declaration of Independence and she’s with the slaves as they’re running for freedom and she’s marching with Martin Luther King and helping dig out the bodies at ground zero and with her cousin as he fights over in Iraq. Well, here, see for yourself:
Have you ever heard a bigger bunch of saccharine soaked sentiment? The point she appears to be trying to make is that she feels “united” in spirit with all those other people who, you know, actually did something patriotic without all the fuss of actually doing something patriotic beyond writing an essay full of platitudes. Needless to say, the Republicans just ate that shit up. It’s a pretty shallow attempt at defending the Pledge of Allegiance as this great ritual that gives kids a sense of “being a part of history” or some such nonsense ignoring the fact that, since the inclusion of the words “under God” in 1954, the Pledge is a divisive rather than inclusive patriotic ritual.
Now I’ll cut Victoria some slack because she’s 15 and hasn’t had a lot of time to actually go out and do patriotic stuff as opposed to just talking about it, but the poem seems so perfectly representative of how the Republicans like to talk about patriotism without actually doing anything that I couldn’t let it pass without comment. For example, for all the talk about “supporting our troops” the Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular, have done a pretty piss-poor job of actually doing something to support them. Like make sure they actually have all the body armor and equipment they needed to do the job they were sent overseas to do. Or to ensure that the veterans hospitals are funded well enough to not only provided the needed care to the wounded soldiers, but so that the buildings themselves didn’t literally fall down around them or make them even sicker because they were infected with mold. The Republicans don’t want to improve the G.I. Bill so that it actually provides soldiers with a decent college education because then they might decide not to re-enlist in the service. They also don’t want too many soldiers to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because then they’d actually feel responsible for having to help them in some way so they order them dishonorably discharged for “behavior problems” thus not only preventing costly mental health payments, but also stripping them of any other benefits they might have had coming to them.
But, boy, they sure do love to talk about how much they support the troops, eh?
I’m sorry, but patriotism to me is something you do, not something you stand around talking about while swelling your chest with a false sense of pride over accomplishments you personally had nothing to do with. Whether it’s something as simple as fulfilling your civic duty by taking time off for jury duty or actually being one of the people helping out at a disaster scene such as ground zero. And, no, the action of slapping a flag on your bumper doesn’t really count.
This was all brought about by this CBS news article about how the soldiers that show up in that video clip were just actors. I guess some folks think that’s a problem:
A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.
“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor Winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.
Staged or real, I don’t see what difference it makes. The poem itself is what they should be annoyed with, not the fact that they dressed some actors up and told them to act all patriotic and stuff. At least that’s the way I see it.
Butch Dallmann, Moorhead, Letter: All answers can be found in the Bible
Published Thursday, September 04, 2008
Well, folks, here we go again.
First they try to make us believe in the “big-bang” theory; then the “millions of years” theory; then the “we all came from monkeys” theory or even the “sea” theory.
Let’s get into the real solution as to what happened and read the Bible. Genesis will explain how it all was created.
Now for the global warming story Al Gore and others are pushing on us; it’s time to read Genesis to Revelation in the Bible.
When God sent the rain on this Earth for 40 days and nights, all this water had to go someplace so the Earth would be dry again.
Remember, God is the Creator and controls the universe.
God tilted the Earth from its original position and caused all the excess water to rush to the poles, and there he instantly froze the water into the ice formations that exist today.
Time is ticking down on God’s time clock. With all the nuclear bombs that are made and stored for the fast-emerging last battle, this Earth would burn up when these nuclear bombs are set off.
We are not creating global warming – God is tipping the Earth back to its original position on its axis and thus getting all this ice to get ready to move and extinguish the nuclear destructive fires man will create.
Time is running out, folks. Jesus is coming soon. Do you know him as your personal Savior?
Well that explains everything. How foolish of me to think it could have possibly been anything man might have done. God tilting the Earth is a much more likely possibility than man releasing millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
There’s nothing like reviewing a few video clips to show everyone just how hypocritical the Republicans really are:
They remind me of those neighborhood kids you played with when you were kids that were always changing the rules of the game to their advantage, but if you tried to do the same then you were a cheater.
