Blackmoor Vituperative

I don’t play a lot of video games. I played WOW for a couple of years (rather, I paid for it for a couple of years), and from time to time I dust off my neato-bitchin’ Logitech Extreme 3D Pro flight stick and fly my WW2 fighter plane into the ground a few dozen times, but really that’s about it. That’s not the point, though. It doesn’t matter whether I play video games, collect Norwegian ballads, or spend my days writing pornographic limericks about toothpaste — in the USA, no one is allowed to pass a law against it, or even regulate it. Why not? The important reason why not is because IT’S NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS WHAT PEACEFUL, CONSENTING ADULTS DO WITH THEIR FREE TIME. A less-important reason is because we have these rules that the government is supposed to abide by, and one of them says (among other things) NO LAWS RESTRICTING FREE SPEECH, YOU FASCIST JACKASS.

So why am I spouting all of this stuff that every child ought to know by the age of ten (and which most legislators apparently never learned)? Because some jackasses want to pass laws regulating video games. That by itself is not new. This sort of thing comes up every so often. Before video games, it was movies, before that it was rock and roll, before that it was novels, and before that it was movies again. Ad nauseam. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that the first time some monobrowed cave dweller scratched a stick figure in a limestone rock, another monobrowed cave dweller was there claiming it would cause the downfall of not-yet-quite-humanity. And yet here we all are, and it’s turned out more or less okay so far.

What’s new (ish) is the Video Game Voters Network. So watch this short but entertaining public service message, and then get off your butt and do something useful: vote. Vote libertarian, if that’s an option, but if not, at least vote for the least oppressive, least power-mad, least war-crazy, least superstitious person you can find. And then call them periodically to remind them that you voted for them because they were supposed to be less of an irrational fascist dillweed than the other irrational fascist dillweeds that wanted the job, and if they don’t shape up you’ll vote for some other irrational fascist dillweed next time around, and they’ll have to go get a real job.

If you do not have a Dropbox account, I would appreciate it if you would create one. For every person that does, using this link, they increase my file space quota a little bit. Plus, who knows, you may actually use it and like it.

Just leave bad enough alone, will you? Please?

George Lucas plans to rerelease the entire Star Wars saga in 3D starting in 2012. First up: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

According to a report in industry newspaper The Hollywood Reporter, Lucas has held off on releasing 3D versions of the films until there were enough screens available to make Star Wars 3D a sizeable event.

(from Star Wars 3D Release, Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, FoxNews)

I received some unfortunate news this morning.

Xmarks will be shutting down our free browser synchronization services on January 10, 2011. For details on how to transition to recommended alternatives, consult this page.

For the full story behind the Xmarks shutdown, please read our blog post.

Thank you for being a part of the Xmarks community; we apologize for any inconvenience this step may cause you. We believe we have the best users in the world, and we hope your bookmarks find a new and happy home soon.

This is really too bad. Xmarks has been one of the first add-ons I install when I get a new computer, for several years. I think it’s unfortunate that they did not try selling the service. There are people (like me) who pay for Fastmail.fm, despite the existence of Gmail. There are people (like me) who would pay for Xmarks.

Happy trails, Xmarks.

I am all alone in Sterling, VA, so I am treating myself to dinner and a movie. Dinner is spicy pork at a Thai restaurant which was highly recommended by the cashier at the theatre, and the movie is Resident Evil Somethingorother 3D, which is (amazingly) still playing.

My favorite part of Glee is when they sing and dance, because it pads out the show so I do not have to listen to as much of the annoying dialogue. Actually, my favorite parts are the brief moments of black-screened silence just before they go to a commercial.

I am curious what the police officer thought he was doing. Did he think he was enforcing the law? Which law? The law against taking photos of people in a public place? The law against standing quietly on public property?

And really: “I can do whatever I want”? Is that what they teach police officers in new Jersey?

Where is the horizontal scrollbar in the left (navigation) pane? This annoys me no end.

Some disappointing news from the Ninth Circuit Court.

On Friday, 10 September, three judges in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, covering the nine western states of the US, handed down a decision that effectively means the end of the doctrine of first sale for commercial software. Speaking of the limited monopoly power granted by copyright law to a copyright holder, the 9th Circuit decision reads:

The exclusive distribution right is limited by the first sale doctrine, an affirmative defense to copyright infringement that allows owners of copies of copyrighted works to resell those copies. The exclusive reproduction right is limited within the software context by the essential step defense, another affirmative defense to copyright infringement that is discussed further infra. Both of these affirmative defenses are unavailable to those who are only licensed to use their copies of copyrighted works.

A fair bit of a fuss is being made over the restrictions imposed by this interpretation of the applicability of the first sale doctrine. Wired offers an article that focuses quite a bit of attention on the subject: Guess What, You Don’t Own That Software You Bought.

(from Court decision clamps down on our rights to software that we ‘own’, TechRepublic)

Woke up sad today. Worked on my car and fixed something, and that made me feel better.