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Technology

Papers Please!

As some of my friends laugh at me for my, cough, somewhat, cough, liberal views, it’s good to see John Gilmore fight back and win a round.

As seen multiple times on Boing-Boing, John Gilmore’s personal fight against the government’s quest to require ID when flying and hide it in a secret law.

The 9th Court of Appeals has rejected (pdf link) the government’s motion to file a secret brief to keep a secret law a secret:

“In a one page order, the Court denied DOJ’s motion asking the Court’s permission to file their arguments in secret, allowing only the judges to read their full brief. A DOJ motion to suspend the briefing schedule was similarly denied.”

John Gilmore is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, “alt” newsgroups on Usenet, and the EFF with such luminaries as Mitch Kapor (creator of Lotus 1-2-3) and Steve Wozniak (creator of the Apple PC). Still active in technology advocacy, Mr. Gilmore speaks against copy protection, internet encryption, and drug policy reform.

Linux Gaming

This article sums up most of my views of gaming on Linux.

I have 2 machines that still run XP – one for gaming, the other I used to 2box my other Everquest account back in the day. It still has a bunch of music I need to transfer to my server, but other than that, I keep telling myself it will be for video editing as that’s the only other thing Linux isn’t as good as Windows still.

But back to Linux gaming: As I game less and less now, I realize I have to get my basement done, as my using my high end computer for non-gaming tasks drives me nuts in Windows. For the last two weeks I’ve seriously considered wiping my XP partition, or at the least making it dual boot. But I’m lazy, though I’m getting closer every day. As I look at what games I play, only Doom 3 has the potential to be played on Linux. If I only ran Linux, I’d have UT2k4 there as well. I had great success with NeverWinter Nights on Linux, but other than that, there are no RPG choices. As I debate EQ2 and World of Warcraft, neither will play on Linux.

Is playing games on the X-box my only choice? (If I were to only run Linux).

I absolutely agree with the article regarding WINE. WINE is not an option for Linux gaming, and for developers it’s a cop-out. Yes, I understand DirectX has matured better and faster than OpenGL. But if major games can work natively on Mac OSX, is Linux that far out of reach?

Save Betamax – National Call-In Day September 14

I was the 1716th person to sign up for Save Betamax – National Call-In Day September 14.

If you haven’t heard, the new INDUCE Act will try to limit copyrights even more strictly than they already are.

After the recent verdict by the 9th Court of Appeals in the MGM vs. Grokster case, this law’s intent is specifically to limit the court’s rulings in these types of matters. Not only will it try to limit copyright, but technology as well.

It’s time to fight back. I’m calling Congress Tuesday. You should too.

Chaska offers city-wide 802.11 for $16

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has an article this morning about the city of Chaska’s wireless broadband service for $16. Discussed previously in USA Today and Slashdot, I’ve looked into it, but I don’t think it’s for me.

It’s more than half off of Sprint DSL, and almost 2/3 less than Time Warner’s Roadrunner service. I’ve had Roadrunner since it launched in Chaska 4 years ago, and it’s been rock steady. I used to average 2.5 megs down, and recently they upped it to 3.5 down. With Chaska.net offering 800k – 1.2 megs down, the reliability, but more importantly (as a gamer) the speed of RR will keep me with RR’s service.

Chaska.net does give me hope for the future, as more cities in the U.S. adopt this model and can make broadband affordable for everyone.

Gmail

Google has to be getting close to launching Gmail based on the number of invites I’ve been receiving.

6 last week – gone. Less than a week later, 6 more. Use one yesterday, today I have 6 again.

Sent 3 of those out already to TCLUG members, we’ll see how long until Google restocks me.

Yahoo Radio & MNF

Speaking of Yahoo Radio yesterday, what a disappointing service.

From a broadcast perspective, it’s gotten better. It used to be when they cut to commercial, it was dead air with no sound. Now you get local commercials.

But I’m a geek – I use Red Hat 9 on the box I listen to the game on. Well, doesn’t work with Linux. Fine. Use the KVM and pull up the other Windows box. Fire up Mozilla Firebird and go back and try and load it and Yahoo tells me I’m not running the right OS again. Takes me a few minutes to realize that I’m running the right OS, just not the right browser. Fire up IE, and bam, get the popup to choose RealOne or WMP as my player. Their OS / player detection page needs to define better the problem. And they should at least be Mozilla compliant. (Hmm, just thought of putting the plugin information in for WMP, but I don’t think that would fix it anyway).

And how about those Colts last night? By the definition of the Leaping rule as Al Michaels read on TV, Simeon Rice did break the rule – even if he landed late. But even to that point, for the Colts to score 3 TDs in 3:44, on the Bucs Defense, is amazing.

Sitting around watching the game last night, we all looked at each other and said this was a defining moment for Peyton Manning – and it was. Good for Dungy, especially after how the Glazers screwed him.