mgroves

How realistic is Gran Turismo? Well, most of us will never have access to the kinds of tracks that are in the game, and most of use will probably never own a car like the ones in the game. But the BBC’s TopGear host Jeremy Clarkson has access to both those things. Check out the video:

It appears that the whole security/surveillance political discussion that’s going down these days has become so politically charged that even a simple thing like cookies can spark a controversy.

That’s right. The NSA was in hot water because their public web site was using cookies. Well, hell’s bells! Next thing you know they’ll be using client-side scripting to populate drop down boxes! I can see the headlines now:

Is the NSA Web Site Using “Java Scripting” to Control YOUR Web Browser or your CHILDREN’S Web Browser?

Tune it at 11!

Here’s some fine cheat sheets for HTML, PHP, JavaScript, etc. These are similar to the laminate cheat sheet things that you might have seen at Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks.

I just have one simple question to ask. Which is it?:

• Canada is the less violent version of the U.S. Less guns and less death.
• Canada is just as violent as the U.S.

If you take credit for having a nonviolent, peaceful utopia, you also have to take credit if suddenly your utopia isn’t so peaceful anymore. Just like if you blame a President for high oil prices (which is silly), you have to give him credit when those oil prices drop (which is just as silly). Of course, that’s one of the first rules of politics: take credit for good things, no matter if you were involved or not, and blame bad things on your political enemies, no matter if they were involved or not.

Trite cliche ahead:

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I would not contend that the last two iterations of the King Kong franchise were meant to be racist metaphors. In fact, the Jeff Bridges version is probably more “progressive” than the Peter Jackson version. However, if you break down the symbolism of King Kong, it’s pretty clear that there’s definitely metaphors for slavery & racism. Aaron McGruder (or at least Uncle Ruckus of Boondocks) seems to agree:

My favorite game genre is the Sierra/Lucasarts style adventure game: Monkey Island, King’s Quest, etc. Unfortunately, this genre has all but dissappeared from game stores to make room for more FPS and RTS games. However, the genre is still alive and kicking in the independent developer and hobbyist scenes.

Fallen Angel Industries has just released Cedric and the Revolution. This is a Lucasarts style game that combines the best features of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, but with it’s very own unique set of characters, settings, and graphics. The overall quality of it is so good that it could easily be mistaken for a “lost” Lucasarts project.

If you are a fan of adventure games like I am, I definitely recommend getting this game.

My Christmas was the usual mix of disappointment, love, joy, and fun. Disappointing because no matter how much I hype myself up for my gifts or the gifts I give other, and no matter how much I enjoyed receiving, or they enjoyed receiving, there’s still a hollow feeling left inside afterwards. I think this is why it’s important to remember that Christmas isn’t just about gifts. Sure, it’s about friends and family and sharing good times with them, but it’s also about a child being born into the world–a child that normally would be humbly lost in the mists of time–that ended up being the single most important person to ever have lived. Not because he commanded sweeping invasions or world spanning empires. Not because he invented electricity, democracy, or the printing press. But because of the plain, but powerful way in which he spoke the (sometimes uncomfortably) obvious truth.

Merry Christmas.

Santa Dr. Light says, “Merry Christmas from MD Groves! Get equipped with December #25!”

A coworker of mine spotted this in our local 7-11:

From the Newark Advocate:

A woman was using a restroom on the first floor of the office building located at the intersection of Easton Way and Stelzer Road on Dec. 14 when she saw a man standing outside her stall.
The victim said the man was peeking in her stall and acting “perverted.”

Now this is certainly no laughing matter, and I don’t mean to make light of what happened to this woman. That being said:

The victim, who is pregnant, said she spent time in the U.S. Air Force and knew how to handle the situation when she was approached. She confronted the man. “I told the man that he was a pervert, cursed at him, telling him he had better get the heck out of there.”

I didn’t realize that they taught how to deal with peeping perverts in the Air Force. But I guess the USAF is well versed in teaching people how to call a man a pervert and how to curse at him. But wait, it looks like her training paid off: notice the use of the vile curse word “heck”.

“After my hardcore verbal confrontation, the stalker left without physical incident to me,” the woman said.

Hardcore? That seems like an awkward way to describe it…

The victim said she is working with the property manager to ensure more security features are added to the building, like requiring keycards to access the restrooms.

Keycards on the bathroom may be a bit of an overreaction, but I guess that’s an understandable emotional response. If some guy was peeping at me, I would probably want 128bit encrypted keycards installed on every door and every stall.