Connectix Flattens Sony… This Time, It's Legal.

Despite the fact that Connectix Vitrual GameStation is buggy, plays nothing like a PlayStation, and requires getting used to using the keyboard to control games, Sony has been fighting Connectix tooth and nail to get Virtual GameStation off of store shelves. And Sony is losing. They’ve lost in two hearings already, and today they “voluntarily withdrew” the case that alleges that Connectix is violating eleven copyrights.

Honestly, I’m very surprised by all this. I knew (and was right) that days after Connectix introduced this product in early 1999, Sony would be all over them like stink on a monkey. I just didn’t think that Connectix would win. Well good for them. Apparently justice does tend to prevail. Now if we could just fix that Microsoft thing any time soon.

SPAM by any other name…

Spam is not cool! Read that again. I get about 20-40 pieces of SPAM a day… this one has to take the cake as by far the most aggressive and ridiculous SPAM I’ve ever seen:


This message is in full compliance with U.S. Federal requirements for commercial email under bill S.1618 Title lll, Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) passed by the 105th U.S. Congress and cannot be considered SPAM since it includes a remove mechanism. Further transmissions by the sender may be stopped at no cost to you by replying to the email address remove_my_name@hotmail.com and placing remove in the subject line.

We practice responsible mailing by honoring all remove requests, following all U.S. laws, and oppose spamming. If you complain and have the remove address closed you are doing a disservice to other receivers of this message since they will have no mechanism to be removed from future mailings. In addition, this message is in strict compliance with U.S. law so if you flame the “remove mailbox” we will report you to your ISP as a SPAMMER, which will result in your account being closed.



Nice remove mechanism, eh?

What the FUCK people!!!???

Tiny Frickin' Drive!

Underscoring the dramatic pace of development in the storage industry, IBM introduced the world’s first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the 3380, in 1980. It was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (about 250 kg) and cost $40,000. The Microdrive announced today is smaller than a matchbook, weighs less than an ounce and will be available for less than $500.


Uh, wow…. damn, I had no idea that drives used to be that big….

Emachines Can't Get It Up

According to this article, Emachines stock prices are falling due to a profits warning of a loss of 30 to 33 cents a share.

The reason? “The drop in the demand has coincided with concerns about interest rates, the state of the economy and the growing instability of the public securities markets.”

That, and they make shitty computers.

The Raiding of Panty Raider

For those of you who don’t know, there’s a new game coming out. And not just any new game. It’s called Panty Raider. I won’t go into specifics as to what it’s about, simply read this article, and you’ll understand.

Now, because there was no readily available way for me to contact the writer of the aforementioned article (and no way for my response to be public), I am using this as a forum for a rebuttal (also, I have access priveleges, so I’m going to use them).

Despite the fact that I might agree with a few of Ms. Lynch’s arguments, I hardly see the point for her being able to use her outlet at ABC News as a way to denounce the publishers of this game. She outright tells them not to publish the game, which she has no right to do. She has no right to tell them what to do with their company. When presented with the argument, “Its intention is to make light of the many pervasive stereotypes that permeate our culture,” by a Simon and Schuster statement, she responds,”Yeah, right. And South Park is high art”.

Maybe not, but South Park is fucking funny.

And for all I know, Panty Raider is, too. You what isn’t funny? Her saying that Panty Raider should be insulting to anyone who reads about it. I don’t know, I’ve been looking forward to it from the moment I read about it a few weeks ago. And that isn’t to say that I condone the act of forcing models to strip down to their underwear. I just think it’s funny in a video game. Very few people understand that video games are not the cause of certain social problems, but usually a deterrent from them. I drive my cars like crazy in Grand Turismo 2, but not on the road.

It seems to me like all the “bad press” that this game is receiving will do nothing more than to boost its sales when it finally does get released.