Colin Clarke Interview - Battlefield 2142 - BF2142.com - BF2142 Forums - Battlefield 2142 Forums - The ultimate resource for all things BF2142: “So far I am wholly stunned by the progress in 2142. It’s an amazing game and it’s not even finished. I know that sounds like a cheesey marketing pitch but its the honest truth. This game kicks ass.”
“An 11 year decline in youth violence has led the U.S. Department of Justice to proclaim, “the offending rates for 14-17 year olds reached the lowest levels ever recorded.” The lowest levels ever recorded. In other words, the PlayStation era has, in fact, produced the most non-violent kids ever. From October 2005, but it needs repeating.”
“In the latest issue of its Otona Fami (the casual version of the Weekly Famitsu), Enterbrain has made a study on the approaching launch of the Wii and the PS3, with Nintendo’s machine winning over gamers, retailers and developers.” There is even a poll with women’s opinions.”
Here are the findings:
Gamers:
73.6%: Wii
16.7%: PS3
9.7%: neither
Retailers:
65.9%: Wii
18.8%: neither
15.3%: PS3
Gamer Maker’s:
69.7%: Wii
27.3%: PS3
3%: neither
Female Students:
50%: neither
37.5%: PS3
12.5%: Wii
Business women:
36.4%: Wii
33.3%: PS3
30.3%: neither
Housewives:
47.6%: neither
42.9%: Wii
9.5%: PS3
TechCrunch � Blog Archive � Watch internet users’ behaviour with ClickTale
A month after I presented my capstone project on capturing and analyzing mouse activity of users interacting with websites, TechCrunch has this article about a company called ClickTale who is doing just this. The features are not yet absolutely clear, but it appears they are offering recordings and playback of individual users sessions with your website. Along with aggregate information of multiple sessions.
The aggregate part is the hardest, and was the focus of my capstone project. Showing multiple users animations over time is not easy, however it certainly isn’t impossible. In addition to not being easy, it is unclear to many people what value this information will be to website designers.
Despite many other setbacks, including Flash content and compatibility, there are three other people interested in this line of research along with me. They are:
ClickTale - focused on the “story” of user sessions.
CrazyEgg - more objective and less over time
Ernesto Arroyo’s Project at MIT - another student project similar to mine.
It makes me very excited to find others who are interested in this. While researching my project, over 6 months, I did not find one person or website that pointed me to any of these projects. I look forward to interesting and powerful new solutions.
Insecure by design | Free Software Magazine: “CALEA (Computer Assistance Law Enforcement) is quietly in the background of current news again, because the FBI is pushing congress to mandate that all future routing equipment manufactured will include back doors for law enforcement. Like in CALEA mandates for telephone switching equipment, such back doors require no warrant to activate, and hence can be secretly enabled at will.”
More on the digital rights front. These things are moving so fast, it is impossible for consumers to vote with their dollar before it’s too late. And the politicians defending us have their heads stuck so far up their asses after 9/11 it’s no surprise this is happening.
The FBI wants to put a backdoor in every router produced in the USA so that they can eavesdrop on traffic sent through that piece of hardware anytime, similarly to how they can with the current phone system.
The FBI can’t even keep their own network secure, let alone yours. Why would they think we’d like them put a backdoor in our routers?
It’s a good time to be tech savvy, because this sort of thing will be easier to comprimise. Unfortunately, those of us who defend our right to privacy will be labelled criminals/hackers.
Some of my favorite comments on digg:
by rewritable
In this smartmoney.com article, the author discusses ethanol in the end. It has some interesting points about how once the ethanol supply reaches it’s max, it won’t be able to replace even a percentage of all the gas America uses. Once this happens, it won’t be competatively priced against gasoline. In addition, even though it burns cleaner, the milage is worse.
What Gas Stations Won’t Tell You (10 Things: Personal Finance) | SmartMoney.com: “Cars run on gasoline — but not all cars need gasoline to run. In fact, 6 million cars on the road today (mostly from U.S. manufacturers and built since 1998) are ‘flexible fuel’ vehicles that can run on E85, a new fuel that is 85% ethanol and only 15% gas. Though E85 is currently available only at 710 stations, it’s expected to show up at 2,000 stations by the end of the year, thanks in part to state and federal tax credits.
When Minneapolis resident John Schafer bought a car in late 2001, he chose a Chevy Tahoe because it’s a flexible-fuel car. Since then he’s filled up almost exclusively with E85. The big difference he’s noticed: Cars using E85 get about 15% fewer miles to the gallon. But it’s a drawback he’s willing to put up with. ‘I’m committed to the technology,’ Schafer says. ‘With E85, it burns cleaner so it won’t pollute as much.’
While E85 generally costs less than regular gas, there is some concern that it may grow prohibitively expensive this summer, when demand is predicted to outpace supply: This year ethanol will be used not only in E85, but it will also compose 15% of every gallon of gas sold. Supplies of ethanol are likely to grow thin, which could drive up the prices of both normal gasoline and E85. And even die-hard Schafer says he won’t buy E85 if it starts to cost more than gasoline.”
How Washington will shape the Internet - The Practical Futurist - MSNBC.com: “The most potent force shaping the future of the Internet is neither Mountain View’s Googleplex nor the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It’s rather a small army of Gucci-shod lobbyists on Washington’s K Street and the powerful legislators whose favor they curry.”
The government should stay away from the internet until it can understand it, but of course who am I kidding? How many bills do these assholes really understand? For the most part, lobbyists are going to ruin another free space (a neutral internet) by over representing the corporate interest. Expect serious counter-measures against corporations on the internet in the event that neutrality is revoked. As we’ve seen with the spread of pirating from MP3s to movies, the harder you squeeze freedom from internet users, the further they will go to find new freedoms. It’s a good time to be tech savvy.
I recommend you support these organizations:
Electronic Frountier Foundation
The Pirate Party - U.S.A.
The Pirate Party - Sweden
We called three Toys’R'Us stores in Australia and all reported the same thing. They are now taking pre-orders for the Wii at US$249, and that will include an unspecified free game! Could Nintendo be including Wii Sports as so many have speculated? At least we now know a free game is included in the package - the question is, which one will it be?
What is he going to tell them? “How about not being a giant corporation that rapes whatever small town you set up shop in?”
So Microsoft is coming out with their own “ipod-killer” which will have a larger screen than the ipod video and they will GIVE you whatever music you’ve bought on iTunes for free on their network.
Sounds like something worth checking out.
Microsoft planning WiFi-enabled portable media player, working on MVNO for next year - Engadget: “But it gets better. To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you’ve already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They’ll actually scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it’ll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.”
Nintendo Wii due for early launch? - Engadget: “CNNMoney.com’s Chris Morris, who cites P.J. McNealy and other unnamed ‘industry insiders’ that the Nintendo Wii is due for October, with a slight chance of late September if the cards are right. This would contrast it to the November 17 PS3 launch, and Microsoft’s November 22 last year, and give Nintendo a bit of a head start in the holiday rush.”
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