Just read this article over at Yahoo. Interesting and a little disturbing. I was sort of hoping that digitisation in situations like that would be significantly more advanced than it apparently is. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, really.
Oo, there’s a whole bunch of stuff to read.
I’m probably a bad person for this, but I have a certain amount of respect for thieves who are very good at what they do, and who do no physical violence to people in the process. This is very likely the result of my youthful Remington Steele fixation, but that’s somewhat beside the point. The criminal mind interests me, but only a certain type of criminal is clever enough to really garner my admiration.
The Map Thief is one of those few. I know nothing about the man beyond what’s in this article and a few others I’ve read about him in the past, but he managed to steal a lot of valuable items over years without getting caught and without hurting anyone. He became an expert in a very niche area of theft and executed his art in a very peculiar and efficient manner simply by taking advantage of extreme security weaknesses in libraries that should have been dealt with years ago.
Of course, all things must come to an end, and he did get caught, but he managed to embarrass the hell out of a lot of people (who probably deserved to be embarrassed) in the process.
Ok, that’s not actually what the article’s about, but here’s a new interview with John Nash:
New Scientist Interview: Return of a “beautiful mind” - Interview
“The free Web browser from the Mozilla Foundation surpassed 10 million downloads on Saturday as Web surfers continue to move away from Microsoft’s market-dominating IE. The milestone highlights growing frustration with the security vulnerabilities that have dogged IE during the past few months.”
On this occassion I would like to send my crazy friends a hearty “Woot!”
“[T]he Orthodox clergy says, with the increasing use of computers in daily life, the time has come to designate an Orthodox Church saint to serve as spiritual guide to internet users.
A few years ago, the Roman Catholic Church nominated a patron saint for the internet - St Isidore, the Bishop of Seville.
However, the Vatican’s decisions hold no sway for Russian Orthodox believers, and the choice for them has been narrowed down to two contenders: Saint John Chrysostom, and Saint Feofan the Hermit.”
I think the “Hermit” thing might be a dig.
So, ok, maybe I’m a prude, but I don’t like games such as Grand Theft Auto. Not only do I not like them, I find them offensive, plausibly damaging, and utterly unnecessary. It’s a very particular sort of game that I don’t like at this level — games that work to provide a reasonable emulation of real-life crime, violence, drug-culture, and that encourage you, as a player, to become part of that world, rather than setting you up to fight against it. In other words, I’m not a big fan of games where the whole point is to have the player role-play a real-life bad guy.
Give me aliens. Give me Sith. Let me run around being a dagger-wielding zombie chick with a bad attitude and a distaste for Night Elves. Set me up with a BFG and some nail guns running around being a Space Marine on Mars. Better yet, give me a hunk of desert and a bit of fertile land along a river and I will build a civilisation. Let me build. Let me create. Let me fight the bad guys. Let me solve crimes. Let me make-believe in a fantasy world. Don’t…don’t have me commit serious (epic, even) analogs of real-world crimes and reward me based on how many people I kill, prostitutes I control, or drug money I bring in. Well, you can offer me the chance to do that if you like, but don’t sell it to the ten-to-fifteen year old set, m’kay?
Now, of course, there’s the ESRB and their video games rating guide, but it’s not exactly all that useful. First off, “the ESRB does not have the authority to enforce the ratings at the retail level, [but] we do work closely with retailers and game centers to encourage them to display ratings information and not sell or rent certain product to minors”. Secondly, most parents don’t have the time or wherewithal to a) know about the rating system, b) actually use the rating system to select games for their children, or c) really have the first clue wtf the kids are doing downstairs on the X-Box in the first place.
I guess that’s actually secondly, thirdly, and fourthly.
Anyhow, I think the actual creation of these games is ethically questionable at the best of times, but I understand the most fundamental reasons for doing so: they make millions and millions of dollars. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, “could be looking at 3 million copies sold in the opening weekend”. At around $50 US per copy, that’s, oh, $150,000,000. In the first weekend. Not an insignificant motivation.
I suppose I just wish that ESRB ratings were (far) more rigorous and better enforced. People are going to continue making these games, for obvious bottom-line-feeding reasons. Parents, however, aren’t going to suddenly wake up tomorrow and be more actively involved and responsible with regards to their childrens’ lives. Which is sad, but true. This being the case, I’d just like to see the video games treated more like…well, more like something that’s rigorously rated that has those ratings enforced at the point of sale. Movies, I suppose. Or…porn mags. Or something.
That’s enough of that, however. I started this post talking about Apple for a reason, and that’s because the Postal people have just released their sequel, Postal2: Running With Scissors for the Mac, and Apple is refusing to carry the title. “The controversial game has been given a M-rating (Mature audiences) along with a first-ever ‘Intense Violence’ sublabel from the ESRB.” Really, if you go look at their website (WARNING: FRONT PAGE IS NOT WORK FRIENDLY) you’ll see that the “M” rating really doesn’t cut it. “AO” (Adult Only, 18+) is what it should have, and that should be enforced at the point of sale by retail drones checking valid photo ID. But I digress…
The Postal site describes their latest product as follows:
Forget what you know about first person shooters. Walk a week in the Postal Dude’s shoes.
Freely explore full 3-D open-ended environments. Interact with over 100 unique NPC’s including Gary Coleman, marching bands, dogs, cats and elephants, protesters, policemen and civilians, with or without weapons.
POSTAL 2 is all about choice; experiment with everyone and everything.
And remember… it’s only as violent as you are!
Which really begs the question: if you’re not running around exploring this open-ended environment with a shotgun and a lust to kill anything that moves, what, exactly, are your interaction options? For all I know there’s a learn-to-be-a-chef-while-playing-mahjongg mini-game, but I’m doubting it.
Wrapping up: I think the Postal people are basically dumbasses for saying things like “The company that brought us the famous ‘1984′ Superbowl commercial has obviously become Big Brother” and believing it.
You buy the ticket, you take the ride. That’s all there is to it.
China, sensitive about issues of national sovereignty, has banned a computer sports game that classifies Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Tibet as countries and has threatened to fine Web sites that supply the game and net cafes that let patrons download it.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Hold onto your seat! Take a journey through time that you’ve never experienced before! Biblical history comes alive, as God’s Word—beginning in Genesis—explains the universe we see today.
Giant bugs—marvels of God’s creation—buzz overhead in our themed gift shop and resource center! Find shelves crammed with the latest books, tapes, CDs, DVDs, videos and other resources that’ll strengthen your walk with the Creator and embolden your defense of His Word. Stock up and tell others what you’ve discovered!
Peer back into the deepest recesses of the heavens, and discover that the latest images of the stars confirm an all powerful Creator, not a random bang!
One set of bones, two interpretations. How can two paleontologists, digging the same dinosaur fossil in the field, reach opposite conclusions?
The answer: starting points. Fossils don’t come with labels. We must begin with assumptions! But which is correct?
It just goes on from there.
“Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, already taking heat for accidentally faxing customers’ financial information to a U.S. scrapyard, apologized on Wednesday after one of its cash machines dispensed fake money.
Instead of distributing C$20 bills, the machine, located in the Maritime province of New Brunswick, spat out colorful bills used as incentives at Canadian Tire Corp. hardware stores. ”
Earth’s defences may need to be boosted against the risk of potentially deadly microbes returning on board space probes sent to study Mars, according to leading scientists.
The warning follows a detailed scientific analysis of data sent back by the roving vehicle Opportunity, which landed on the Martian surface on 25 January this year.
Jeffrey Kargel of the United States Geological Survey said: “Before proceeding with sample returns or human missions to Mars, we must review measures for planetary biological protection.”
