Sid Meier’s Civilization for next-gen consoles

If you’ve ever played Civilization and also ever been addicted to the game (usually, these two go hand in hand), you’ll be happy to know that Take 2 Games has just announced that Civ is coming to “next generation consoles and handhelds” in Spring 2008. (I recall hours wasted playing Civ during both high [...]

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10,000

Thanks to you, we now have had 10,000 “reads.”  Woot woot!
Thank all of you for visiting and reading our daily prattle, humor, thoughts, and occasional deeper thoughts.
We’re just glad to be here.
Cheers,
H Lime, yojoe, and Fredegar.

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June 07 Comparison: XBox 360 Graphics vs. PS3 Graphics

Gamespot editors have just published a second iteration of their comparison of XBox 360 and PS3 graphics, wherein they post photos from identical games from each of the two systems. In December 2006, one year post-360 release and just after the November 06 PS3 release, Gamespot conducted a similar comparison. The December 06 comparison [...]

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iPhone/Mac Guru Steve Jobs to Disney: Cut the Crap

Steve Jobs new iPhone is getting mostly rave reviews (check out WSJ’s Walt Mossberg’s video review HERE), and Steve Jobs’ name again gets linked with eminently good taste.

In an equally smart move, Mr. Jobs, who’s both a member of Disney’s Board of Directors and Disney’s largest shareholder, was reportedly a “decider” (or at least an [...]

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Shining What? I Just Thought It Was Cute.

In the picture below is Ms. Diaz wearing a bag emblazoned with the slogan “Serve the People.” This was a political slogan of the murderous leader Mao Zedong.

This was understandably upsetting to the people of Cuzco, Peru as Shining Path was the cause of some 70,000 deaths in the 1980s. Shining Path was [...]

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Researchers Discover Six New Branches of Government

There has been a buzz on Capitol Hill in recent days not seen since Joe Kennedy installed a mechanical bull on the floor of the Senate. The discovery by Dick Cheney that the Vice President’s office constitutes a fourth branch of government has triggered a flurry of projects and papers by government researchers. As in [...]

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2007 Global Markets Forecast: Gaming Industry Set to Outpace Music Industry

ArsTechnica today releases some results from Price Waterhouse Cooper’s “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011: Industry previews“. Global spending on video games is forecast to, as early as during 2007, surpass global spending on music.
Among the factors influencing this prediction:

music’s continual struggle with DRM (digital rights management) issues;
ripe field of in-game advertising (which revenues [...]

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CIA’s pre-1972 Illegal Domestic Operations Declassified

[UPDATED 26 Jun: the full 702-pages of primary source materials, referred to below, were posted today on GWU's National Security Archive. Download or keyword-search the files, HERE (24 meg, .pdf).  GWU's summary of the documents is HERE, with links to brief/meaty selections.]
Thank “nature’s God” (or your own preference) each day you’re able to discuss [...]

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Xbox 360 sales increase 300% in Japan (June 11-17)

 On a second notable occasion, the Xbox 360 has now seen a significant rise in hardware sales in Japan tied to releases of Japanese-friendly software titles. Signs and portents of further good fortune or another blip on the radar?
Media Create Company reports today that, last week, the 360 sold three times the number of [...]

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Iran’s Ex-President Charged with Shaking Ladies’ Hands

Life is very difficult for former Iranian “reformist” president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) these days. As the video below (after the break) depicts, he shook

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami (left hand unaccounted for)
hands with women on a recent trip to Italy–and is now facing trial following condemnation by Iranian conservatives. Ultra-conservatives a protest [...]

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AP’s “BREAKING” story: White House “near” decision to close Guantanamo?

So reports the AP: “Senior administration officials said Thursday a consensus is building for a proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where they could face trial.” Three senior admininistration officials spoke of ongoing discussions on the [...]

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The Intelligent Design fallacy: “Plenty Scientists believe in some sort of God anyway.”

As a matter of fact, the results of a new survey, released in the latest American Scientist, reveal something to the contrary, at least, with regard to evolutionary biologists. The “so many scientists believe in God, and that’s proof there’s no conflict” argument, of course, is one of the arguments forwarded by proponents of [...]

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Keeping “rape” out of the courtroom.

In yesterday’s Slate, Dahlia Lithwick reports on a Nebraska judge’s decision to ban the words “rape,” “sexual assault,” “victim,” and “assailant” among others from, well, a sexual assault case. The decision was made because, supposedly, the use of the terms was biased against the defendant. A retaliatory prosecutorial motion to ban the words “sex” and [...]

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SCOTUS decides Federal Sentencing Guidelines case, Rita v. U.S.

SCOTUS handed down today its decision in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines case, Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754, holding 6-3 (J’s Scalia, Thomas, and Souter dissenting) that appellate courts may presume that sentences are reasonable (and holding 8-1 as to the issue I don’t discuss below, that the District Court properly analyzed the relevant sentencing [...]

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Liver Pate linked to Alzheimers, Diabetes, other diseases?

Nothing sensationalist about this headline, despite our imaginary 24-hour buyout by Rupert Murdoch.
Indeed, new study results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the first evidence of a link between a compound found in fatty goose and duck liver and the rare disease amyloidosis, which is an abnormal buildup of amyloid deposits.
Such abnormal [...]

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