What Phone number scan can do for you?

Phone number scan has become the latest tool to search your way through. But what do you search with a Phone number scan? People! Yes, you could search people with the help of a phone number scan. Not just that, you would also be able to search state and court records with Phone number scan. [...]

3 Tips on how to find Georgia car accident lawyers

Car accident lawyers are in great demand these days, and with a spurt in the number of accidents occurring in Georgia on a daily basis, Georgia car accident lawyers are the most sought after lawyers in United States. Compensation is the core issue when you come across accidents in Georgia. Residents of Georgia are willing [...]

Infinity Ward defending the cost of MW2’s DLC

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To say we were a tad flabbergasted that Modern Warfare 2 ’s 5 map pack DLC costs $15 is about right. We weren’t exactly outraged. It’s just a video game after all and really doesn’t matter that much. But $15 is a bit much for five maps with two of the recycled from previous Call of Duty games. Infinity Ward’s Creative Strategist Rob Bowling disagrees. He calls it an investment. Well, Creative Strategist is just code for Public Relations so he kind of has to say that. NowGamer A lot of people think they should be getting the old maps for free. Don’t you think 1200 MSP is a little bit expensive for what is essentially three new maps? Rob, I have no doubt that anyone who downloads this map pack is going to get their money’s worth. They’re going to feel their investment is worthwhile. Because if you’re playing Modern Warfare 2 like myself or many other people do every night, that’s actually going to give you a bunch of new mileage and a bunch of extra gameplay – to really explore and discover them and to really, you know, come up with new tactics and experience them in a whole new way. Regardless of what the price is you’re going to feel your money’s well-spent.

Gluvi, the remote control condom

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Are you disgusted by humanity? Do you find human contact repulsive? Are other people, in a very Sartrean sense, hell? Then you need the Gluvi . While the vast majority of humanity writhes in its own excrement, the Gluvi will allow you, the chosen one, to knock the hotel remote off the bed without fear. The Gluvi is, in fact, a remote control condom. To use it you don your own pair of gloves, slide it on, and then press the buttons with a pencil. Then you get on the computer “to check email” and end up surfing to that weird site you like, the one with the midgets, and you furtively pleasure yourself while crying, trying all the while to imagine your grandma is watching you, just like they said you should in that self-help book you read on the plane, but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because grandma turns away and you’re forced to take the dark supernova of pleasure and twist it into pain. You’re a very successful person, you tell yourself, you’re happy in life. Your furniture isn’t Ikea. It’s mostly West Elm. You have a home to go back to after you make this sales call in Kansas City but these swine won’t let up. They give you dirty everything. Everything. Dirty door knobs, dirty bedsheets. People can come into your cold room and steal you and your things. People break in. There’s SARS, here, there are loathsome, diseased sub-humans who purport to take your luggage up to your room and proceed to spread their horrible seed on the canvas of your overnight luggage. And, as you fight the urge to scream, to burn this whole place down, you can grab the remote – fearlessly, mind you, thanks to Gluvi – and turn on MSNBC and the urge falters and flickers out, like a broken fluorescent. And then you’ll sleep. Goodnight swine. Goodnight voices. Goodnight swine. Product Page

Generation I: Middle Children of the Information Age

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Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first. The personal computer (in all its forms) has grown to be, I would say, the single greatest potential source of prosperity in history. It has enabled the internet and a consequent democratization of all sorts of arts and information, as well as the ongoing destabilization of financial institutions via distributed money transfers. The revolution, and it really is one, is ongoing. How unlike the world of 2000, of 1990, is the present day? And 2020 will be doubly, triply removed. As technology further enables itself, the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration; if this interests you, you should probably go talk to Mr. Kurzweil , since he’s done a bit more work on the idea. I’m not concerned with the singularity, however: my object is the generation to which I belong. I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons, is the only one to which the rate of advancement of technology was exactly fitted. At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age. It’s a serious claim, but I hope to show that it’s founded in observation and not egomania. And let me remark further before I begin, that I am not claiming any special merit for this generation, only a special situation . Lastly: I will speak of “advancement” or “progress” as if they were objectively measurable, when clearly there is much to be said on what those concepts actually consist of. But for the purposes of this article, let us consider them to be, say, the progressively sophisticated bending of the natural world to our needs and wants. As even a casual student of history (read: a grade-schooler) can see, the rate of technological and cultural advancement has ever accelerated, of course with some interruptions due to warfare and subjugation. This is first observable in the length of “ages” — the stone age, 40,000 years. The bronze age, 2000 years. The iron age, 1000 years. There are too many books written on this topic for me to spend many words on this, and at any rate this acceleration is palpable to those of us living in the modern first world. Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature. Let us look at recent history, to prime our minds for the idea of what I would call a “generational technology.” The car is a perfect example. Prototyped in the late 19th century, manufactured widely in 1915, increasingly affordable and common over the next 30 years, then producing a “car culture” in the 50s and 60s, followed by an increasingly consumerized nature as the automobile was integrated completely into civilization, and cities and lives began to be designed around it. Today the integration is complete, and perhaps we are on the verge of another change, to a post-car world. I don’t know. But the divisions in the car’s history, you see, are a lot like generational periods. The specific dates and years aren’t important, as generations are a sort of rolling concept, and the lines are wherever the historian finds them convenient to be. So let us look at the stages of the car, which I have also given names (I’m a coining machine today): Hammer stage: During this time, the concept and platform of the automobile were being determined by the founders and inventors. Things like setting down how many wheels a car will have, which method of propulsion it will use, the materials it will be built from, and so on. There was surely some bickering here, as there was between AC and DC when prototyping electrical devices, but one fundamental form is almost always selected, and for the car it was four wheels, front engine, and internal combustion. This stage is performed entirely by an older generation of inventors, investors, and engineers. Paper stage: This is the period where the creators turned the design over to the marketers, who made it into a product. Extra features were created within the confines of the pre-established framework, manufacturing methods were improved, the whole process made faster, and other steps taken to make the technology affordable and attractive. For the car this was of course improvement in reliability, luxury, and speed, among other things. It is a stage of intense competition among marketers, who must both inform and sell to the public, to whom the idea of the car (in, say, 1925-1940) is still new and barely affordable. They are largely ignorant on the subject and are likely skeptical. Tinker stage: Once the car was adopted by consumers at large, as cars were by the close of World War II, the next (very numerous) generation grew up with the “new” technology taken — I don’t want to say for granted but perhaps as granted. The car culture of the 50s and 60s was a result of a generation of people in tune with an important and exciting technology, a generation as familiar with the car as they were with the clock. There was an expansion of the purposes of the car during this time, as well as a great improvement in their quality, since this generation, having grown up with cars, would work to provide the advancements that were not possible under the auspices of either their parents or the inventors, whose ideas were likely no longer applicable. This positive feedback loop, as in other technologies, leads to a second push and prepares the way for the fourth stage. Mirror stage: Once the car had been proposed, adopted, and grown up alongside of, in the three previous ages respectively, it was ready to become fully integrated. Not just because it had gotten to a certain level of affordability or reliability, but because it was an integral part of the modern person’s life already, and now the task was to shape civilization around it. While the highway creation act in 1956 obviously wasn’t driven by 10-year-old baby boomers, the obligation of government and industry to acknowledge the growing importance of the automobile was clear enough once it was recognized at large as foundational. In this stage nearly everyone is part of the process; the automobile has impressed itself on civilization, and civilization must now reflect it more fundamentally. The term Mirror Stage is actually an existing psychological one (as well as an excellent game ), and refers to the period at which a child becomes captivated with its own image. I thought it loosely appropriate. Essentially: invention, introduction, internalization, integration. But is there another stage? I don’t think so. The cycle is complete: the changing world births a new technology, the technology is popularized, refined, and eventually fuels the next change. I chose the car as a representative because it is familiar and its effects clear, but with a little work I think that the model I’ve just suggested can be applied to pretty much any technology, from aqueducts to longbows. But this isn’t a longbow blog — so let’s move on. Note that, in the example of the car, each stage is relegated roughly to a generation. The inventing generation sells to the adopting generation, which brings up the integrative generation. Furthermore, the inventing generation cannot be the adopting generation, and the rate of progression in this case prohibited the adopting generation from being the integrative generation; for the car it took around 50 or 60 years, arguably more, for it to reach its Mirror stage. My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage: to be a part of the genesis, popularization, refinement, and counter-refinement of their age’s defining technology. Now, I don’t claim we invented the personal computer; nor, I’m sure, would those who are cited as inventing the computer. Like the automobile, the computer was a long time coming and was enabled by advances in many other technologies and disciplines. Early computing was as an exercise in logic, mathematics, and electrical engineering, and its early advances academic. What defined the automobile, and what has defined both the computer and the age in which it has proliferated, was not in fact the creators (brilliant though they were), who were the implements of history, but the people who used them and guided their use. For the car, that definition was stretched out over long decades, and people grew old while automobile technology remained young. For the personal computer and the internet, the infancy of the technology coincided with the infancy of my generation, its adolescence with our adolescence, its growth with our growth, in such a pas-de-deux as has no precedent in history and, for all we know, may have no equal in futurity. Generation I is the middle child of the information age. To be born a few years earlier would mean to see the personal computer and the internet as an new and exciting gadget, like the VCR or Walkman. A few years later would be to arrive late to the show: to grow up in the presence of computers, smartphones, and the internet, but not to grow up with them. Taken for granted, these things become black boxes; on the other hand, seen as just another set of devices and applications, they lose their transformational potential. I think the timing is very important, but of course as part of the generation, I am prone to that error. Our readers will probably remember that computers around 1980 were ugly, limited, and expensive machines. They performed a few of the functions will still value today (word processing, calculating, games) but had no GUI and little connectivity. I don’t want to overstate the parallels, but just for clarity in what I am driving at, consider that an apt comparison might be to a young child, able to see and crawl, or walk totteringly — fundamentally intact, you see, but encumbered with limitations that can only be changed with time and effort. I remember learning just enough of my dad’s old work computer to find tic-tac-toe and play it on the flickering amber screen. A few years later, primitive UIs are emerging, so primitive that the command line is still unarguably the more powerful tool. Just as Generation I begins to learn to read and to speak, the PC can be communicated to in what we understood as plain language. The first truly popular computers proliferate, running DOS, and a few of us were lucky enough to play with one of the later Apple II models. In 1990 the GUI and the more complex tools it enables begin to flourish and become fundamental to the PC experience, as Windows 3.0 and the Mac Classic hit the market. Shortly after that, the first affordable modems. BBSes, AOL and its chatrooms and fake internet, and then the revelation of the true web with Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and so on. I won’t waste your time with further details you’re almost certainly familiar with (having lived through them), but you must see the way things are not moving at the rate of a stage per generation like the car. No – they moved more quickly, but not so quick that we lost track. This particular speed of maturation (from “infancy” to “adulthood,” which we may define as, say, Windows XP or OS X; after that I believe the core functionality of the PC OS has not been substantially altered), which is roughly the same as the speed of maturation for a human being, and Generation I has the privilege of being the computer’s twin sibling, if you will. Though the virtue of being born at the right time is not ours to claim, nor is it simply a novelty that Generation I has grown up in tandem with a world-defining technology. As we grew up with it, we have seen and participated in all the stages of generational technology. We witnessed as children the squabbling between Atari, Microsoft, Amiga, and all the others as the beat the raw metal of computing technology into a shape the world could use. We knew it when it was young, and then we helped it become a household technology by simply being in the household, the way baby boomer kids grew up around cars and ended up knowing cars better than any generation before them. However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages. Not so for us: every year the computer was changing its case, its OS, its capabilities, its interface — everything changed about it, but we still recognized it, the way we’d recognize an old playmate year after year who, though changing in size, aspect, and ability, we still know . That is how Generation I knows the computer, the internet, the smartphone, and whatever comes next. Not as a series of devices, but as the natural progression of a friend whom we know by sight in spite of the changes wrought by time and culture. Perhaps it is best expressed that we know the ghost in the machine, that which has informed and guided the progression of the technology from household appliance to a tool as fundamental as the wheel. Captain Nemo took pride in the Nautilus “moving through a medium of movement.” He meant the ocean, of course, a place that is never the same one instant to the next, but which he nonetheless knew and navigated freely because… well, because he had a submarine. The metaphor doesn’t extend that far. But the idea of moving in a moving medium is a powerful one. To truly understand the way that the world changes around you, and to not only be able to survive in it but to thrive, to navigate, to direct that change, that is the privilege of a generation born into movement. I see in my flight of fancy I’ve really built up Generation I into quite a ridiculously grand thing, and in doing so made the same mistake that I described in the first sentence of this article. I did not mean to do so, but the simple boon of being born alongside a world-changing technology is not minor: it matured with us and has shaped us as much as we have shaped it, and that means that we are on the front line for the Mirror Stage of the information age. Can you forgive me for being excited to be a part of a sea change in civilization, a change in infrastructure perhaps more fundamental than the integration of the automobile? Few events in history are the equal of this impending shift, if I’m not mistaken. I of course don’t claim it for myself or my generation; it is a glory we will share in, but which we may be able to uniquely enjoy. Imagine being the childhood friend of the first man to set foot on Mars. It’s no credit on yourself exactly, but you just may understand him more fundamentally than anybody else. What’s that I hear you saying? That we haven’t actually contributed much to the progress of the personal computer and the internet? Very true! If I’ve claimed otherwise I’m very sorry, because Generation I, like the baby boomer generation in the 60s, isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out. What was the work of the baby boomers? Was it driving cars around fast and knowing how to clean a carburetor? Hell no. Their task wasn’t just to know the technology that would shape their world, but to shape their world . And that’s our job as well. What changes the world will know in the next 20 years are impossible to predict, but you better believe that Generation I are going to set their shoulders to it. The Mirror Stage awaits. And why Generation I? Before us is Generation X, or so we are told. I’ve heard people my age, or my brother’s, as Generation Y. It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear; otherwise the Greatest Generation would be called the Kaiser Kids or something horribly inappropriate. Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece, and as far as I can tell it’s the most evocative of that which truly defines us. Generation I reflects the burst of technology which in the last decade (as we ourselves have made our real-world debut), has become commonplace, and the prefix “i-” has become a universal indicator of tech. Yes, it’s a bit of a capitulation to Apple, but let’s not fool ourselves: the iPod and iMac immediately became so synonymous with personal technology that i- became generic almost overnight. So we’ve got Generation i . To be honest, I’m not sure if I prefer i or I. I think that, like other instances of the letter, capitalization may vary. Generation I is also Generation Me : the increasing independence and compartmentalization of the social order that is the result of the personal computer and the internet, our totem technologies. It’s the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation. And Generation I is Generation One . This is the most important of all. The coincidence of timing that resulted in us being born with silicon in our mouths also charges us with a serious responsibility — though what it may be is yet unknown. No generation is warned of the tribulations ahead, though with luck our task will be suited to our unique position. But why the One? If, as I suspect, we are in fact the first wave of a new, tech-integrative sort of people, then surely the kids born after us, into a world already possessing high-speed internet, Wikipedia, and GPS smartphones, are Generation II. What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do. I’d like to conclude with an apology. If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you’re seething with anger at having been excluded from what I seem to think is the most awesome generation of all time, who invented everything worthwhile and will do everything important in the future. I want to correct that potential misconception, though I understand where it’s coming from. Obviously the pioneers of the information age are largely baby boomers, and of course Generation X is one of the great utilizers of technology. And for that matter, kids today fulfill many of the conditions that I think make Generation I so special. I can only say that I tend to get carried away, and that our special situation is really the main thing we have going for us. Am I reaching? Very likely. Am I romanticizing? Most certainly. Let’s chalk it up to youthful vigor. It is probably true that every distinct generation is born into a confluence of circumstances that is consequential in its own way. Too often, though, I have felt that people my age have been maligned as a passive generation, one of consumption and luxury. That’s actually true as far as it goes, but there is much beneath the surface; who would have thought that the boomers, flower children and hot-rodders in the 60s, would be galvanized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam, emerging to become the most powerful demographic in the country, and perhaps the world, for decades running? It is toward such heights that Generation I must drive itself. We must show ourselves equal to the special favor we have been granted, and do our part to carry the world into the next age, whatever it asks of us. Note: if you comment about how this article was too long for you to read, your comment will be deleted. Who cares?

The $75 iPod levy that will solve all of Canada’s problems

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Apparently it’s illegal in Canada to copy music from a CD you bought to an iPod (or whatever). It’s simply not allowed, even if you’re not breaking any DRM in the process. (In the U.S., it’s illegal to copy a DVD to your computer’s hard drive because you have to circumvent the copy protection in the process.) Solution? Some sort of levy, which would ensure that “artists” make money even though you’re not re-buying their music. The deal now is that an MP up there wants to introduce a CAN$75 “iPod levy” that would effectively legalize copying music from a CD you bought to your iPod. The levy has just been proposed, but if the Canadian legislature is anything like its American counterpart it’s going to be a little while before anyone even raises the issue again. The idea of a levy isn’t new, per se—there’s already a levy on blank media (CD-Rs and the like) that supposedly help to make sure that “artists” get paid. (My hunch is that it goes right back to the record label’s coffers, but whatever.) Granted, you could be buying blank media to backup your PowerPoint presentation, so it’s not a 100 percent fool-proof thing, but it neatly solves the problem in a way that prevents people from having to re-think the entire concept of copyright in the 21st century. This so-called iPod levy could also negatively affect people who buy iPod but don’t put any music on them—people like me, for example. I have an iPod touch and I dare you to find one song on there. (I pretty much just use it for like 10 minutes a day to check WoW.com before going to bed.) Why should I have to pay CAN$75, which is like US$4,000 these days, to subsidize other people’s habits? Yes, I understand that the number of people who buy iPods and then don’t put any music on there is quite small, but I needed to fulfill my daily complaint quota. Let’s turn it around, make it local to our fair American readers. Let’s say Congress, for whatever reason, creates and passes a law that says you’re 100 percent allowed to copy DVDs (legally bypassing the DRM) that you own to your hard drive, but that from now own all commercial DVDs come with a $10 tax on them to cover the “losses,” so to speak. Would you go for that? Flickr

You probably ought to download Donkey Kong Conutry 2: Serious Monkey Business

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An outstanding e-mail showed up in my inbox a few moments ago promoting the release of Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business . It’s a remix album from OC ReMix, the people who are famous for, you know, remixing video game soundtracks. (I used one of their Street Fighter remixes in a video review about a year ago.) But, yeah, Serious Monkey Business! The album is totally free to download, and it totally brings me back to 1995/1996 , perhaps the last year I was legitimately happy. That there video is a preview of what you can expect. I don’t know, I figured at least a few of you would get a kick out of it.

The Lab vs. The Real World: product testing is hard

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple months, you know that Toyota has had problems with sudden acceleration of some of its vehicles. Apparently, the root cause of the problem is still unknown, which is a little troubling to the average consumer. Toyota claims to be doing everything they can to investigate, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Now everyone and their brother are suddenly product design engineers and have the gall to tell Toyota what to do and how to do it. Witness this opinion piece in the LA Times by David M. Cummings entitled “ Haven’t found that software glitch, Toyota? Keep trying “. Mr. Cummings worked on the Mars Pathfinder project for NASA, so he has some credibility to his name when it comes to software design and product testing. But his opinion piece seems to completely miss the point of the PR nightmare that Toyota is dealing with. Mr. Cummings says “I’m still skeptical when I hear an engineer declare a complex software system to be bug-free based on laboratory testing.” I admit I haven’t been following the Toyota situation very closely, but I’d be floored if anyone at Toyota has gone on record to say that the millions of lines of embedded software used in Toyota vehicles is “bug free”. I’d be surprised if any professional software developer anywhere would have the gall to claim any code bug free. Code is complex. The systems on which the code runs are complex. The number of variables affecting the execution of that code are even more complex. As Mr. Cummins observes at the beginning of his rant, “Toyota’s chief engineer testified to Congress that the company has done extensive testing on its cars’ electronics and believes they are not the cause of the sudden acceleration.” To claim that the software is not the cause of the sudden acceleration is not the same thing as claiming that the software is completely free of bugs! What really sticks in my craw about Mr. Cummins complaint, though, is that he doesn’t appear to appreciate the audience that Toyota is addressing. Sure, some of the people following this situation are engineers, and they may well be interested in the details of the testing methodologies, or specifics of lab results; but most people are average consumers with no interest whatsoever in the science of this issue. They just want to know that the problem has been identified and fixed. When I provide technical support to people, I don’t go into the specifics of memory registers, or heap and stack overflows, or any of the other things that happen to cause problems. I tell people that something went wrong in very simple terms. They trust me to know what I’m doing, else they wouldn’t have asked me to help them to begin with. They don’t want to get into the nitty gritty, else they’d pursue a job in technology on their own. I think Mr. Cummins needs to remember that not every Toyota owner, and certainly not every member of the U.S. Congress, is an engineer, or has an engineer’s mentality. Mr. Cummins final remarks are very sound, though: “this should serve as a wake-up call to all industries that increasingly rely on software for safety.” I agree whole-heartedly. The world is only going to continue to get more complex. We need to build safety and reliability testing into every facet of product design, and not trust the tool chains we use to build software.

The Lab vs. The Real World: product testing is hard

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple months, you know that Toyota has had problems with sudden acceleration of some of its vehicles. Apparently, the root cause of the problem is still unknown, which is a little troubling to the average consumer. Toyota claims to be doing everything they can to investigate, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Now everyone and their brother are suddenly product design engineers and have the gall to tell Toyota what to do and how to do it. Witness this opinion piece in the LA Times by David M. Cummings entitled “ Haven’t found that software glitch, Toyota? Keep trying “. Mr. Cummings worked on the Mars Pathfinder project for NASA, so he has some credibility to his name when it comes to software design and product testing. But his opinion piece seems to completely miss the point of the PR nightmare that Toyota is dealing with. Mr. Cummings says “I’m still skeptical when I hear an engineer declare a complex software system to be bug-free based on laboratory testing.” I admit I haven’t been following the Toyota situation very closely, but I’d be floored if anyone at Toyota has gone on record to say that the millions of lines of embedded software used in Toyota vehicles is “bug free”. I’d be surprised if any professional software developer anywhere would have the gall to claim any code bug free. Code is complex. The systems on which the code runs are complex. The number of variables affecting the execution of that code are even more complex. As Mr. Cummins observes at the beginning of his rant, “Toyota’s chief engineer testified to Congress that the company has done extensive testing on its cars’ electronics and believes they are not the cause of the sudden acceleration.” To claim that the software is not the cause of the sudden acceleration is not the same thing as claiming that the software is completely free of bugs! What really sticks in my craw about Mr. Cummins complaint, though, is that he doesn’t appear to appreciate the audience that Toyota is addressing. Sure, some of the people following this situation are engineers, and they may well be interested in the details of the testing methodologies, or specifics of lab results; but most people are average consumers with no interest whatsoever in the science of this issue. They just want to know that the problem has been identified and fixed. When I provide technical support to people, I don’t go into the specifics of memory registers, or heap and stack overflows, or any of the other things that happen to cause problems. I tell people that something went wrong in very simple terms. They trust me to know what I’m doing, else they wouldn’t have asked me to help them to begin with. They don’t want to get into the nitty gritty, else they’d pursue a job in technology on their own. I think Mr. Cummins needs to remember that not every Toyota owner, and certainly not every member of the U.S. Congress, is an engineer, or has an engineer’s mentality. Mr. Cummins final remarks are very sound, though: “this should serve as a wake-up call to all industries that increasingly rely on software for safety.” I agree whole-heartedly. The world is only going to continue to get more complex. We need to build safety and reliability testing into every facet of product design, and not trust the tool chains we use to build software.

The Playstation Move: Everything old is new again, if you ask Sony

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So, this Move . I’m pretty sure it brings nothing new to the party. That’s too bad, because the PS3 is starting to take off (after three lackluster years) and it would have helped push units if they had an innovative motion control system. I mean, not everyone is into the motion controllers , but… seriously, Sony. It’s a Wiimote . Don’t even try to tell me it’s different. The only real difference I can see is that the camera is on the TV rather than in the remote. But that’s not really important. What’s important is that this controller does absolutely nothing new. I mean, it’s used in the exact same way as a Wiimote. It lends itself to the same control schemes as the Wiimote. It’s the same size and shape as the Wiimote. Its method of determining motion and position is similar to the Wiimote’s. Tell me what is possible with the Move that is not possible with the Wiimote? There are two points I’ll gladly yield. The motion sensors in the Move are almost certainly a bit better than Nintendo’s (though the MotionPlus negates some of those gains). And the PS3 is of course far superior in graphics and we might, for example, get an adult-themed sword-based game where enemies don’t shoot sparks and disappear when you cut them. I don’t want to sound ghoulish, but come on. It’s a sword . Gizmodo notes that multiplayer is a little gimped . Yeah, a bit, but no more than the Wii, I think. I’d say that the “sweet spot” that exists for the Move is more limiting to multiplayer than anything else. I’m not sure of the Eye’s field of view, but can four people really fit in it comfortably while flailing around? The benefit of the Wii method is that the “eye” is in the controller, meaning as long as you’re pointing at the TV, you’re good. I was pumped for the Move until I figured out (a couple months ago) that it wasn’t going to actually offer anything new to developers. Maybe there will be a few cool hardcore games that wouldn’t fit graphically or tonewise on the Wii, but they’re not opening up any new horizons. Let’s hope Natal doesn’t disappoint. I understand Microsoft is going to be leaning on it as a whole new control method for its whole lineup, so we can probably expect some pretty good stuff. And of course there’s Razer and Sixense’s sweet-looking magnet thing . Until then I’ll be sticking with my SNES.

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