The Universal Mulligan

As per usual recently I’m behind on this. So I finished Manifold Time by Stephen Baxter. It’s the first in the Manifold Series by Baxter. I’ve read a couple of Baxter’s later collaborations with A. C. Clarke. This is the first of the 3 book series, but it was written way back in 2000.

Frankly you can see why Clarke wanted to work with Baxter. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a kind of passing of the torch. I’ve only read 3 of his books so far, but Baxter seems to have the makings of the next great SF author, on the level of Clarke himself. This book is an excellent example of that. If the next two in the series hold up to the example this one set it is a series on par with the scale of The Space Odyssey series.

Baxter takes a big bite in this grand scale book that covers human existence from now until the heat death of the universe. And he does remarkably well living up to the goal he set himself. It starts at a time close to the publication of the book, 2000. That means that the 8 years that have passed make the story behind in some ways, but really it can be seen as an alternate universe anyway. Baxter weaves a tale that could lose many readers if not for his good use of characters that need exposition.

If you like stories with grand consequences that question humanity’s place in the universe, then this is a good one. It has made me really curious about the next books in the series.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Through the Seamy Side

So I splurged a little a while back and ordered a few books from B&N. Now me buying some books isn’t that unusual. What is unusual is that these books are graphic novels. In fact they are two novels in three books. I’ve read both of them in normal comic form, thanks to a friend. I liked them so much that now years later I bought the anthologies. Both of them are by J. Michael Straczynski. I recommend reading his Wiki article. And I read one of the graphic novels over again last night. It was great, so I decided to throw up a short review of Midnight Nation. You know I’m not sure if I should italicize that or put it in quotes. Eh whatever.

I’ll try to keep any spoilers to a minimum. Oh and Smitty you will read this when you move up.

Midnight Nation (Big spoilers in link so don’t look if you haven’t read the story already) was made in 12 issues and covers the year long journey of LAPD Lieutenant David Grey as he walks from LA to New York. Why would someone with a steady job and responsibilities do that? Well David got too close while investigating a murder and what appeared to be a new crime power moving in LA. As a consequence, he had his soul stolen by “The Other Guy”, and he only has a year to get it back. This has thrust him into an invisible world that exists alongside ours where all the lost people and discarded objects go. A woman named Laurel is his guide and possibly more on his journey to reclaim his soul. Together they must traverse the country in heat and snow to get to New York in time. All the while “The Walkers”, servants of “The Other Guy” try to slow him down. Will David make it or will he succumb to the growing urges creeping though his mind as his struggles get harder and the road never seems to end? And one question looms. What must he do once he gets there to reclaim himself?

It’s good. I mean it’s really good. I always love JMS’s writing and characterization. And he has a way with telling a story. Not many times you can read something so profoundly religious (not necessarily Christian), and political, and psychological all at once. I know this one is going to have to make the rounds with some family and friends.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Book Smarts

After lagging back a little while, I powered through two books in a short period of time. This review is the first of those. This was another break from the 700+ pages of what I now think is 8.5 point font. I finally read The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson. Previously I have reviewed Cryptonomicon, and before I started doing reviews I had read Snow Crash at the behest of a friend. Before starting this one I had liked Stephenson’s books and had high hopes for this one. In fact this book was recommended by the same friend, but it took me to this point to get around to reading it. I’ll probably ramble on about it in my own way.

This book takes place decades into a future where the promises of nanotechnology have been achieved. The novel explores what society becomes when virtually anything is possible. Buildings are grown by a feed run into a foundation. Diamond has replaced glass in windows, because it’s cheaper. The very air is filled with microscopic machines performing duties and waging wars at their masters’ biddings. Governments fell apart after truly secure money transfers made effective taxation impossible. They were replaced by a global economic protocol and groups of people that have formed societal clans. These clans maintain claves (enclaves) in various parts of the world where they live and guard their interests.

Now I’m torn because I want to talk about the book, but I don’t want to give too much away. Well I’ll see what happens.

The fulcrum of this novel is one John Percival Hackworth (Percival was the grail knight). He is an artifex, a master of nanotechnological design. In fact I would venture to say he is as much artist as engineer. Yes I know I am a little biased for engineering elegance being artistic. John belongs to the powerful clan of neo-Victorians. After the collapse of 20^th century western society this clan eventually came to power by embracing Victorian ethics and codes of conduct. The clan tends to churn members a bit. Those that join the clan after a hard life outside tend to become the clan’s strongest members. Those born into the clan tend to be lackluster in achievements. To combat this trend in his own granddaughter, a duke commissions Hackworth to create A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. The “book” if you can call it that is a sophisticated interactive computer system that is designed to give a girl all the tools necessary and to teach her to take chances and become great. Hackworth, in probably one of his only criminal moments, steals a copy of the book for his daughter only to have it stolen and fall into the hands of Nell.

Nell, not sure if it ever says her last name aside from saying her brother’s, is a poor little “thete,” poor with no clan affiliation, girl. She cannot read, her mother seems to have little care for her, and her brother Harv acts as her protector and teacher, until Harv brings her the Primer. Nell has had a hard life for a 5-6 year old and the Primer begins her education. What happens then is a wild ride following the lives of several people and Nell as the fruits of Hackworth’s brilliant mind accidentally, purposefully, and subconsciously weaves a tapestry of events into being.

I quite enjoyed this book. It captured me like the other of Stephenson’s books and made me want to read it faster. The characters, the environment, and the politics of the time all mesh well together. Stephenson does a good job of creating the fantastical from the technical. It does a good job of explaining how experience and education create most of who we are as individuals. The 3 initial Primers each do something different for the girl to which they are given. The 100,000+ given to the castoffs do something different, but similar. In all it makes you wonder if Hackworth had any idea exactly what he was creating. Stephenson also continues to do some strange things with sex and descriptions that tend to throw me out of the world he has created. It’s probably more me than anything else. At least none of it seemed that unnecessarily descriptive, unlike a couple of scenes in Cryptonomicon. In all it is quite a satisfying read. I recommend it to anyone that likes similar types of books.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

I’m looking over

So this past weekend I had some friends up. We had a little frozen precipitation, but nothing stuck. So Saturday we went to the movies and watched “Cloverfield.” I had seen the trailers for it and had heard a few things. I was really anxious to see it, but I was also afraid that the camera movements would make me sick. I had a really had time with “The Blair Witch Project.” That movie had a shaky camera though the whole thing. I don’t know what possesses them to do that. Yeah it was realistic, but I had to close my eyes through about 1/3 of the movie due to a splitting motion sickness induced headache. Cloverfield had a similar camera effect, but it was easier to close my eyes during the high motion sections that didn’t really show anything. Anyway on with the review.

The movie follows a guy and his friends. The premise is someone is filming a sendoff party for one of the main characters. During the party the city is rocked by an “earthquake” and then explosion. Then it becomes obvious that it’s no mere accident. Something really big is in the city and it’s tearing up the place and killing people. The rest of the movie is about the people trying to get away.

It was pretty well done. There were some stupid parts. I always wonder if these characters have never watched a scary or a monster movie before. Here’s a tip. When stuff starts running one way you should probably follow it. And some others for people that might get trapped in a horror movie situation, when the scary things get scared it’s bad and don’t go to see what that noise is. Also, there is never too much ammunition. So in all I really liked the movie, even with the headache inducing camera motion. I’d like to watch it again, but I’ll wait for the smaller screen. I also really want to see a sequel. We talked about it at home and thought a parallel time line from the military point of view might be interesting, especially if it crosses the path of the same actors. They did a really good job making a unique monster, and driving suspense. It also leaves you with a lot of questions that never get answered. That’s for the next movie.

If you like scary monster movies then this is a must see, even at full price. If you have bad motion sickness, close your eyes when the camera is really bouncing around. At least it stops for some of the conversations.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Myopic, Lethargic, and Rapacious

I’m reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln that goes, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” I thought of that, because I just finished read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond this past weekend. That quote sums up a great deal of what the book is about. The other measure of the book concerns studying the past in order to understand ourselves. I recommend reading the reviews of friends here and here.

This is the second of the books by Diamond I have read. I reviewed Guns Germs and Steel earlier. Whereas that book coved why certain civilizations became the world conquering powers of today, this one explores the civilizations that didn’t make it. Well that’s not true. It covers some that made it and some that didn’t. Then it delves into the differences between the two.

This is a long book and it took me longer than normal to read it. I was distracted by other things and had to steal time away to read it. However, it was well worth it. GGaS may have won Diamond a Pulitzer, but I see this book as more important. Almost anyone who can read a book of this length can understand where Diamond is coming from here. In chapters he lays out societies from early civilizations to pretty modern nation-states that that have collapsed due to essentially mismanagement of their environment. He then examines similar societies that survived, and in some cases thrived, because they undertook the steps necessary to secure their future.

As my friend Smitty commented in his review, the brilliant thing is that Diamond doesn’t get preachy about saving the horned owl or some such thing for its own sake. The point he does make is that saving a little money right now by ignoring pollution, overpopulation, overfishing, and overworking the environment is going to cost taxpayer a hell of a lot more money down the road. He explains it all in dollars and cents manner rather than appealing to altruism. I think that method will appeal to far more people than most others.

So as you might be able to tell I really liked this book. It’s probably one of the best I’ve read in a long time, and I think most people should read it. I let my father borrow GGaS to read, and I’ll probably send this one after that.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Links redux

Several months posted about the FDA approving a new vaccine that I had mentioned the year before for several of the viruses that can cause cervical cancer. Well the NYTimes has an article up(signup required) about the Texas Governor Rick Perry signing an executive order mandating the vaccine shots for all girls entering 6^th grade, excluding those whose parents refuse to participate. I’m actually really surprised that Texas was the first state to do this, though the article says that Texas has the second highest number of women with cervical cancer. The executive order does offer the opportunity to bypass a lot of political wrangling in the legislature, and I don’t think there will be a big fight to eliminate it. Plus, the implementation conditions seem to be reasonable. I’m hoping Texas opens the door for a lot of other states to add this vaccine to the normal series of vaccinations women receive through their lives. Here’s hoping.

Several weeks back DailyTech had an article about a Naval rail gun test that passed the 8 Mega-joule range. I tell you I like that stuff. It bodes well for safer and longer range guns and a cheaper, more reliable plane catapult system. Where do we get those wonderful toys?

Well I spoke before about the Real ID Act, with my opinion that the security problems and ability for abuse outweigh the potential benefits. Well Ars has an article up about the growing opposition to the act. Seems more people are getting concerned about it for all the right reasons, security, abuse, and monetary. Maybe the system does work occasionally.

Oh and for friends that like the ideas of wikis and writing Ars posted about a “novel wiki” taking place. So far it looks like a situation of too many cooks in the kitchen. Should be interesting to watch.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Timpani Roll

I've had the Child's Play Charity banner at the top of the blog for weeks now. The drive is over and the totals are in. This year the charity raised over $1 million for games and such for childrens' hospitals over the world. A last minute rally drove the number above $1 million. That's an outstanding achievement for such a young charity targeting specific audience. Here's hoping the number will bring more publicity to the charity and make next Christmas' drive even better. I congratulate the organizers and all those who gave so freely.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Deep Down in My Soul

Earlier I reviewed The Civilized Engineer by Samuel Florman. I had purchased the book for a class many years ago. After reading part of what was required for the class I decided to purchase a previous book Florman had written, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering. This past weekend I managed to finish the book. Maybe I won’t ramble on about this one as much as I did about the previous one, but I make no promises.

TCE was more a book about the rift between engineering and society’s and the Liberal Arts’ view of engineering. TEPoE is more about “Why engineering?”. The book was originally written in the 1970s during the anti-technology and counter-culture movements that defined much of the time. The book is indelibly marked by this. Though the elements have softened with age they still exist, and the points Florman makes are still as pertinent as the day he penned them.

This book could truthfully go by the name of another book, To Engineer is Human. The two books are very different, and they take different meanings from the title. Florman spends most of the book punching holes in the idea of the un-naturalness of engineering. He promotes the idea that engineering is a most basic part of being human. Florman makes sure to support himself with facts, but he takes great care to support himself with feelings and such that the existentialists deem more worthy than mere science.

To be honest with you, when I started this book I wasn’t quite sure what existentialism meant. To me it was always like the term post-modernism. It means different things to different people, and the ideas are so nebulous that their very meaning precludes definition in words. But as it turns out my basic seat of the pants feeling for the word was essentially right. Florman is primarily using the word as the deep down essential part of being human. The existential pleasures are the ones that give us our most meaningful sense of belonging and accomplishment and warm us to the very center. Florman maintains that engineering, as a basic part of human existence, provides these pleasures. And I have to agree. I personally have felt the pleasure of coming up with a fast solution to a pressing problem, and I have had the elation of realizing the answer to a question that has plagued me. I freely admit that during some machine design while I Co-Oped I had to get up and run around the engineering floor and manufacturing floor when I realized a solution to a problem or an elegant refinement of a design.

Anyway, I dearly liked the book. Florman does an excellent job in writing prose and describing the mind of the engineer. I really enjoyed reading the book and would actually recommend it to some people engineers and the like better. I think this book is more widely enjoyable than TCE. Reading this book is one of the things that lead me to write a post a couple of weeks back. Maybe it could do something similar for you.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Snow Job Man

My brother finished reading a book for a class this summer and recommended that I read it. That’s unusual, because my brother didn’t use to read that much. However, he seems to want to ramp up his reading, and so I have offered some of the books I have. Plus he now has a job at Books-A-Hojillion that should help as well. That book was of course Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Atwood may be more familiar as the author of Handmaid’s Tale, another book that will probably end up on the “To Bo Read” shelf. I took a lot longer to read this book than normal, because it was a hardback on loan from the library. I didn’t feel like carrying the large book and risk messing it up. So I don’t want to waste any time getting to my rambling review.

The book takes place in the future, but I’m not sure how far removed. It’s probably the middle of this century, maybe a little later. At the very first you are introduced to Snowman. He begins slowly introducing you to the very strange world he lives in. Through present events and flashbacks to the past you are carried on the journey Snowman’s life. You get introduced to his dysfunctional family. The weird genetics company compounds he lives, goes to school, and works in. All this information while he reveals the empty and dangerous place the world has become. You meet Crake and then Oryx and the parts all three have played in these events. The world is essentially devoid of human life, except for Snowman. It is now the domain of the genetically engineered docile rakunks, the vicious wolvogs, the intelligent and omnivorous pigoons, and of course the Crakers. How could all of this destruction have taken place? Truthfully, Snowman is the last human on Earth that knows.

I really liked it. It was a pretty good page turner, and it kept you wondering about the answers to the questions all the way through. I mean you figure out the generalities of what happened early, but the details are what you read for. Anyway this post apocalyptic, depending on your world view, technology run amuck story reminds me of many of the similar stories. I think Atwood did a good job here and would recommend it to all those that like future tech disaster human condition stories.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Our Place

I feel bad because I haven’t written anything in a while. I had an unusual short reprieve from work and class work that allowed me to post an unusual amount of stuff, catch up on others blogs, read web sites, and read books. Well that kind of ended. Now I have to steal time where I can. So I wanted to write something and kept thinking about it. Well in reading my web sites, listening to people, and reading two of the books I’m reading led me to this. I’m sitting here drinking a 22oz. K and decided to write. I’m not sure what it’s going to be or how long I’ll ramble about it, but follow along if you will.

One of my daily routines is to read “Noble Intent,” a journal on Ars Technica. They cover all types of scientific endeavors, but over the time it has been around they have published a large portion of evolution related posts. It stems form some of the pro-intelligent design shenanigans that occurred over the past few years. They also cover many things about human initiated global climate change, also due to rampant denial. It’s kind of their way of making a point and fighting for what the writers think is right. I enjoy it, but I digress.

I read several entries in the journal recently, and combined with the Florman and Attwood books I started thinking about my point of view. In the first Journal entry the author indicates that “Myopia is such a human trait.” I find that interesting and insulting. Humans are probably the most far sighted organisms that live on this planet. But the true question is, is it myopia if you can see forward and do nothing, can see forward and do some things but not everything, or if you can’t see forward at all. Well people can’t do everything. That’s essentially removing humans from the environment. Short of killing everyone, we can’t realistically do that. One must realize that all the organisms are opportunistic and short sighted in trying to reproduce the most and spread the farthest. Algal blooms and zebra muscles are opportunistic to the point of destroying ecosystems. That’s not far sightedness. Humans are less opportunistic than any other organism on Earth. But arguably we aren’t doing as much as reason indicates we should. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about a point of view.

Shoot my K is empty. Hmm. Might have to break out the whiskey.

Anyway, both sides of this argument have a tendency to separate nature and man with this artificial barrier. I always get a chuckle when I hear people say, “these are organic tomatoes,” or some such thing. I should hope so. Silicon based tomatoes would probably be hard on the digestion. Yes yes they are talking about natural fertilizers rather than processed chemicals, but one must also realize that crude oil is organic and arsenic is completely natural. These are artificial terms placed on things that make people feel better about categorizing. Essentially one type of system adds processed chemicals and oil byproducts to plants and the other throws shit on them. You choose which you prefer, but remember, the spinach fiasco seems to have been caused by unwanted “organic” fertilizer.

So, what am I getting at here. People like to think of us as different from nature. Maybe it is my engineering side coming out, but I don’t see that there is a separation. We are part of nature. Us studying the universe is the universe studying itself. We aren’t fucking nature up. Nature is fucking itself up. We are just the primary component causing all the turmoil. Humans are natural. In their current state they are natural. They may not be doing smart things, but they are natural. We are what evolution and nature have made us.

Essentially it all boils down to information storage. For billions of years information storage and reproduction took place primarily in DNA. This information storage technique allowed it to change slowly over time to allow organisms to carry the most important information forward and still be able to change to the environment: genetic evolution. There was always a drive to make the best organism for a situation. Sometimes that meant the one that could adapt to changes the fastest. That’s where it happened. Humans and our ancestors came about. I’m not sure how, but the DNA was slowly augmented by another information storage and reproduction system, the advanced brain and communication techniques. It requires both, because a brain with no way to communicate information to others is a dead end street. This allows information and techniques to be passed down the line of progeny just like DNA. It also allows it to grow and change, much faster than DNA can, learning evolution.

Mmmm. Whiskey.

So what good is this learning evolution. It can’t change our bodies in any manner. What it does do is allow humans to take a common animal ability to an extreme. Bats nest in caves and trees, hermit crabs take empty shells as homes, and birds build nests. All of that is programmed from genetic evolution, GE. Humans use their far faster learning evolution, LE, to perform similar feats of environmental change and item manipulation. We pick up a sharp flake of rock and use it to skin an animal. We use a mass on a stick to apply blunt force to objects like nails. We cover ourselves with items that allow us to survive sub-freezing temperatures for long periods, and we use a spiral piece of metal to make holes in objects.

What nature created was a creature with conscious control over its evolution. The human became a modular animal. It became a powerful and flexible central control system that could consciously evolve modular components that it could attach and detach in order to do specific tasks. By attaching a shovel it can dig a hole effectively, a car attachment provides rapid ground transit, and a plane attachment provides even faster air transport. Essentially all of these creations, from hair curlers, to homes, to nuclear power plants are LE extensions of the human.

The problem is that our LE method of advancement far outstrips the ability of most other organisms t keep up. In fact only the fastest reproducing organisms can keep up using GE. That of course would be bacteria and viruses. That's why our LE, medical advancement, has such a tough time keeping up with them. Maybe now that we are beginning to understand the GE method of information transfer we can get an advantage.

Essentially all the technology that is lamented as a prison is a part of ourselves. It is not a prison any more than the lobster’s shell is a prison. But we have an advantage. We can control out evolution and change directions if we see we are headed to folly. It is no use to blame technology, because it is merely an extension of ourselves. The only thing we can do is recognize our mistakes and change the course of our evolution. The problem is that we are still the GE organism at the center of the LE mechanisms. We still are drawn by the lure of the quick gain and growth. Myopic growth is a basic component of all biological organisms. Our only hope is that our LE changes and teaches us fast enough to overcome that biological shortcoming. From the looks of the last link from the Noble Intent journal, education, the heart of LE, appears to be our best hope.

It’s sleepy time now. Mmmm. Whiskey.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

The Gift of Fun

The end of the year brings a great many things. One of them appeared on my blog a few days ago. For those that noticed the green banner for the 2006 Child’s Play Charity has appeared at the top of the page again. Even Ars Technica has gotten in on promoting the charity. My Godfather had lamented for many years the amount of money exchanged by my extended family around Christmas. He expressed an interest in seeing some of it donated to charity, and last year I donated several items for him. This year I am taking the spot and am going to request one person donate to this charity rather than purchase something for me. I’m going to challenge my friends to do something similar. Ask someone to make a donation to a charity of your choice rather than buy you a gift.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

Florida gets Bully’ed

I put a post up earlier about Rockstar, their new game Bully, and Jack Thompson. I didn’t cover the topic in all the detail I felt like, because it was getting too long as it was. Well as it turns out the Judge has watched several parts of the game instead of the whole thing, and has decided to decline the move to restrict the sale of the game in Florida. Jack Thompson of course declares it a miscarriage of justice. The Judge said the game is no worse than what is on television. Thompson probably wants to shut down most of that as well. Basically the Judge came up with the same ruling that I was thinking about. The game is free to be sold, and it’s the parents’ responsibility to monitor what their children play. Wow what a novel concept. Too bad more parents don’t follow it. If you let your kids do whatever they want then you don’t get to gripe about the activities they choose afterward. Here’s a novel idea. Why don’t you watch them play some of these games? I’ve played a couple of RPGs in my life, but I’ve spent more time watching friends play. I usually play the part of lookout and provide assistance in problem solving and direction choice. Of course all that is with permission of the person playing. It becomes a socializing event much like some of the online gaming has become. Now lets see what happens next.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.

“I cut you so bad. You no wish I cut you so bad.”

“Those are some bad roaches.”

“I blame the schools.”

Rockstar Games has been in the news a lot over the years. They garner a lot of attention because they have published a lot of games that depict or involve the user in violence, like the Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Revolver, Manhunt, etc. These games received a lot of finder and tongue wagging because “Depictions of violence are bad. MMkay.” In the past couple of years there was another big uproar about Rockstar. They were stupid enough to leave some code in the game that allowed a player’s character to have badly rendered and acted sex. The code wasn’t accessible in the normal game, but there are modders out there that live to make this kind of stuff work. Apparently it was alright for little Timmy/Tammy to shoot someone in the head, but God forbid he/she has poorly simulated sex on the screen. Basically it was a stupid mistake to leave the code in there to begin with, but the situation blew way out of proportion. The game was recalled, the code was removed, and the rating was upgraded. Which if parents had been paying attention to the rating in the first place young children wouldn’t have been playing the game. It just makes me angry and when I’m angry I ramble.

That got a small number of very noisy people worked up because they didn’t have any other way to make a name for themselves at the time or justify the existence of their organizations. They screamed that the ESRB, the organization that rates the games, had failed in their job. That started a whole bunch of bad legislation to “monitor” games, whose sole purpose was to waste taxpayers’ money and make it look like someone was doing something for the upcoming elections. Why bother trying to do something good when you can just make a showing. I say that, because most people in government knew the laws were unconstitutional to begin with. Haven’t we had that document tread upon a little too much in the past 6 years already? Personally I think the ESRB is doing a fairly decent job. They recently added punitive clauses to ratings agreements that allows them to fine companies for including material not disclosed to the ESRB. And more stores are following the ratings in refusing to sell some games directly to kids below the rated age level than previously. Plus I believe that there is no complicated situation that government regulation can’t screw up even more. The focus should be keeping it private, self regulating, encouraging store adherence, and educating parents. Maybe more lobbying will fix it with a little fight fire with fire. Think of the dent we could make in the deficit with the lobbying money spent in this country.

Anyway, it’s a complicated issue, which brings me to what I wanted to say. Rockstar has a new game coming out shortly, Tuesday in fact. It’s called Bully, and apparently it’s shoved a big hornets’ nest on a long stick up a bunch of people’s collective asses. Given Rockstar’s history of violent games and the “Hot Coffee” mod lots of people drew conclusions about the game way before anyone had played it. Now that is looks like it’s coming out, and some people have played it, their hyperbole about the game had shrunk, and they appear to be grasping at stuff to say about it. Surprisingly, Jack Thompson, of Penny Arcade fame (start at the second post on the page), gave an interview about the game and was surprisingly coherent, logical and showed some valid concerns. I think they may have finally gotten his medication straightened out. Well Jack has been spearheading a court case to allow him to see the game before it is released for sale. I’m not entirely sure why he and only he is qualified to judge the game for appropriateness, but apparently he is. I guess everyone else lacks the intelligence or moral fortitude to do it. So a Florida judge had ordered Bully brought to the court so that the judge can observe and direct someone playing the game. Considering the game is dozens of hours long, this could result in severe butt trauma. The real question is what does this mean for future games and other forms of entertainment. Will law suits and judicial review become standard fair for somewhat controversial games, movies, books, plays, TV shows, newspaper articles, etc? I’m waiting on the answers and hoping they will be good ones.

Click for the rest of the rambling >>.