You have a time limit. Your ship is vulnerable at a one pixel area. If you are hit in that area, you die, are respawned, and lose 20 seconds. Each boss you beat will restore some time. You keep going until time runs out. That’s it. Simple, elegant, fun. The game is small, and free to download.

In all seriousness, one of the most appealing features of Linux, to me, is that it gives me ample opportunity to royally interfere with my computer’s proper functioning. I have a truckload of stories about times my computer has been effectively inoperable as a direct result of my uninformedly mucking about with things.

The reason I like that so much is because, when it comes down to it, I learn about computers best by fixing things that I broke. I don’t sit down and think, “Ok, I’m going to learn about how this configuration file is structured” or “Let me study and understand the intracacies of the login sequence.” However because I sudo nano without proper regard for what I am doing, I will sometimes make it impossible to, say, login. In those circumstances I do have the inclination (and often a pressing need) to fix it.

Right before I got my powerbook, I had read an article about OSX in which the author of the article claimed that try as he might, he could not “accidentally” break the system. In short, he declared it user-proof.

Being the gremlin-savant that I am, I managed to, immediately upon installing the system, serve as a counterexample to that claim. A few years prior, I had fooled around on my brother’s Red Hat machine, and had learned a very very small amount about linux. One thing I had learned was that there was a primary account called “root” used for system administration.

Knowing that Apple’s OSX was built on top of Unix, when the installer prompted me for a name for the administrator account, I thought I was being clever by naming it “root.” If any of you lost respect for me just now, I promise, I have learned a lot since then, and in fact, have much more sophisticated methods of ruining my machines.

If you didn’t immediately realize that naming the account root was a mistake, I will let you in on a secret; it is. I didn’t learn a whole lot from that experience; mostly “don’t create accounts with names that are already taken by critical system functions.”

Later, when I started using Linux, I made a number of (from my perspective) equally subtly stupid mistakes, but instead of just reinstalling things until they were fixed, I was able to start learning about what precisely I had broken.

Here is my favorite such story, starring Sym Links, FIFOs, and the login sequence:

One day, I had a clever idea.

My computer had a program that I had installed called “gensig” which created a random signature file from a list of quotes that you want to cycle through. Every time the .signature file was read, it would get a new quote. Since I didn’t bother to find out the mechanism by which it did this, I will not yet reveal how this was accomplished. My clever idea was to make my MOTD file a symlink to my .signature file, so that I would have a new random Message of the Day from some collection of quotes every time I log in. (for those of you who are curious, the collection I had assembled was each of the entrance lines that Darkwing Duck said, e.g. “I am the terror that flaps in the night” or “I am the check that overdraws your account”)

This worked marvelously for quite some time, where both my e-mail signature and motd were astoundingly randomized. It was then, probably a month later, when I had to reboot my computer. I rebooted, everything started up hunky dory, and I got the login prompt. I put in my username. I Put in my password, and it printed my last login information, and then it just stopped. No command prompt, no error message; just an uninteractable terminal displaying the date of my last login.

After many many different methods of trying to diagnose this problem, I was able to determine the login sequence, and see which part was failing. Now, it had been some time since I had installed the signature program or symlinked the MOTD, so it was not in the forefront of my mind that that could be the problem; after all, my computer had been working just fine with it set up that way for some time. When we isolated that it was, in fact, the MOTD that was causing the problem, we then had to figure out why.

Gensig works in the following way: your .signature file is a FIFO instead of a normal file. When the gensig program is running, it tells the file what output in response to a request on the file. So, when something tries to read the file, it waits until something is put into the file, and then takes that thing as the contents of the file. This was working fine because gensig had been running since I installed it, and so, there was always something telling the file what to output when it was read. After the reboot, gensig wasn’t running (because I hadn’t done anything to make it startup on boot), and so, the file was just waiting to be told what to output. Since the file was read (through the symlinK) during login, before I got a command prompt, login was just sitting there waiting for something to be output from the file. Which wasn’t going to happen until I started the gensig program, which, in turn, wasn’t going to happen until I logged in. I imagine you all see how vicious this cycle was.

Eventually, I just deleted the symlink (booted off a livecd, if I recall correctly), and the problem was solved. I learned an important lesson that day; namely, “Even the Message of the Day file can be the cause of major complications, especially if you symlink it to a dynamically generated file without understanding how that file is generated.” Or, more briefly, “You can ruin lots of things with a little bit of knowledge.”

At any rate; those are just a couple of my many tales of user error. Most of my tales boil down to my specifically setting up the computer to run command foo, only to find out that running foo is the equivalent of telling my computer “run for a five minutes, then freeze indefinitely” or something of that sort.

If you have stories about your own Tales of User Error, send them along, and if I get enough good ones, I will assemble them and post them here on Forever Geek, for all the web to see (I will not publish your names, only your amusing anecdotes, so there is no need to fear that your embarassing computer histories will be traced back to you.

I have used Wikipedia for a while, mostly to satisfy personal curiosity about some topic I wasn’t clear on or some term I’d heard mentioned. One of the people who lives on my floor in my dorm had taken a more active role in the Wikipedia community, fixing typos, adding content, and so on.

It was at his suggestion that I got a user account, and began participating in the wikipedia process. At first, I was participating oblivious of the community that exists; as I imagine most first time editors do. I think the nature of the wikipedia encourages this type of participation, initially, and the result has a profound effect on how one responds to discovering the community of editors.

Any group that shares a common function, whether that function is to play baseball or collaboratively edit an online encyclopedia, will trend away from being several people cooperating, and form a coherent community. And communities have customs and taboos.

Now, because you can participate in the wikiprocess (note: wiki is considered a valid prefix in some circles) without having any awareness of this community, one can easily go against custom without being aware of it. It is advised that wiki-veterans not bite the newcomers, but, understandably, sometimes their tone can be hostile when they’ve had to correct the same error hundreds of times or deal with the same misunderstanding repeatedly.

One thing the Wikipedia lacks is a cohesive process for “training” new members. However, there is good reason it lacks this: the last thing you want to do when your existence depends on a volunteer army of internet surfers is make the process of joining more difficult than it needs to be. You want to make joining easy, and then just hope people learn the ropes as time goes on.

After a brief stint of light editing, I stumbled across Votes for Deletion. What I did not at first realize is that this is perhaps the most political aspect of Wikipedia. In fact, at the time, I imagined wikipedia to be without politics. Now, when I say politics, I am referring not to governmental affairs, but instead to wikipolitics; the policies and attitudes that people support and have in virtue of their ideas of what Wikipedia is meant to be.

If any wikipedian considers an article to be deficient, they can nominate it for deletion by editing the page itself to add a deletion notice and by listing it on the Votes for Deletion (VfD) page. Then, concerned/interested wikipedians add their vote and some sort of justification (using the term very liberally) to the VfD page, and, when rough consesus is achieved, the group-preferred action is taken.

Articles get nominated for a lot of different reasons. A non-exhaustive list is: The article is unexpandable, the article belongs on a different project (wiktionary, wikisource, etc.), the article is a joke or nonsense, the article’s subject is not notable enough, the article is a copyright violation, the article’s subject cannot be addressed neutrally, and so forth.

Now, there are definitely VfD regulars, and after spending a fair amount of time browsing the votes on VfD, the patterns to their votes (for those who have patterns) become readily evident.

I was astounded when I discovered that there was a page which, in effect, was a battleground for people’s views about Wikipedia policy. Now, the simplest way to put it is that Wikipedia is governed by direct democracy. There is no rule-making body save the community itself, and while there are editors who have been designated sys-ops or administrators, from what I understand, their role is exclusively to enact whatever consensus is achieved by the community as a whole.

Now, the politics that I’m talking about aren’t liberal or conservative biases in articles (although some people do submit material that is biased), but between different ideas of what wikipedia’s goal is/should be.

On one end of the spectrum you have the group of people who envision Wikipedia, eventually, being a catalogue of pretty much all knowledge ever. From things as miniscule as the acting credits and biography of an extra from an episode of Friends, or say, every individual Pokemon to things as important as World War II or Christianity. Their all too often used motto is “Wikipedia is not Paper” which apart from being true in a literal sense, is used to indicate the idea that, since they do not suffer the physical space/cost limitations a traditional encyclopedia does, because disk space is cheap, and text files are small.

At the other end of the spectrum are Deletionists. They want Wikipedia to be a professional quality collection of articles on encyclopedic topics. B movie actors and Pre-schools do not usually make the cut, by Deletionist lights. Their fun motto about what Wikipedia isn’t is “Wikipedia is not a junkyard.” This motto, shares the quality of literal truth with the Inclusionist counterpart, and is meant to point out that just because you could have an article on every Pokemon by no means guarantees that you ought to or even that it might be good to have an article on each individual pokemon.

Now, politics can be irrelevant on wikipedia, and they can also be very influential. An editor could abstain from and ignore participating in any of the political goings-on, and merely edit pages that need editing. And indeed, many do. But, as I discovered, wikipolitics are alluring. I read about the different factions on wikimedia which is a wiki whose content is about other wikis. After careful consideration I threw down with the inclusionists.

In the next update, I will talk specifically about becoming an Inclusionist and how that has impacted me and my involvement with wikipedia.

“Tommy Westphall’s Mind: A Universe Explored” examines the results of tv series crossover/intermingling.

Technically, in the material that follows there is a spoiler of sorts, so be warned that I mention the final episode of “St. Elsewhere.” Also note that being concerned over just how fictional a tv series is (a fiction within a fiction, perhaps) is probably not the best way to spend your time.

So what, exactly, is the deal with this? Ok, let’s say you have a character from one series do an in character cameo on another series. You are thereby committing those two fictions to the same fictional universe. This is all well and good for certain spin offs (Frasier obviously occurs in the same universe as Cheers), but can be problematic for others. Why? Well, lawyers in “Law and Order” were involved in a trial against a doctor from St. Elsewhere.

St. Elsewhere’s final episode reveals that the series, and all characters contained therein, were the dreams of one child, Tommy Westphall. But, if this dream character was tried on Law and Order, then, Law and Order must be part of the child’s dreams.

And, as the dominoes begin to fall, we realize that many many series are part of this boys dreams, organized into an excellent chart and explanation by Keith Gow.

I find this fascinating to contemplate, and there are many puzzles associated with fictional crossover, but I never anticipated that one small boy could be responsible for 164 different shows.

I spotted this story on Xoverboard, so thanks to August J. Pollack.

“[Heck] yeah, I’ll preorder that [expletive deleted],” I exclaimed, temporarily unaware of the small children milling about the store. That’s right, I was so excited about a new zelda game, I swore loudly in front of small children.

Does this game justify that level of excitement? Well, Watch the video and decide for yourself.

The release date is set as “2005″ so it could be over a year away, but my local Game store decided to take pre-orders now anyways. This was a good move on their part, because they got some of my money now for a game I’m not going to own for upwards of a year.

In the end though, we are all winners because there is a new Zelda game coming out. And in this game, Link is no longer the small boy, he is now a teenaged Link. A teenaged Link capable of mounted combat.

Some info about the game but in short here’s what we know about it: Link is a teen, the game will focus on puzzle solving, and Link still won’t be doing much talking out loud.

The thing about the zelda series that makes me so excited about it is that it is designed with a sense of cinematic splendor. Since first playing Ocarina of time, and especially when playing Wind Waker, I could see that the game’s design was motivated by the story-telling, and that made it more fun for me to play.

At any rate, this video and whatnot has been out for a while, but it is only recently that I preordered the game, so it reminded me how good the video is. Watch it.

When F-Zero GX came out, I pre-ordered it from them; their shipping estimate was the release date, so it was all set to arrive in my mailbox a few days after it came out. Instead I had to wait a few weeks. The frustrating part was, having already ordered it, I didn’t want to cancel the order and go pick it up from a local game shop, since it could be shipped, they claimed, at any time.

I learned my lesson, or so I thought. Until Guardian Heroes Advance came onto my radar. Guardian Heroes, for the Sega Saturn, is one of the best games I have ever played. Treasure is one best game developers ever. So, from the comfort of my home, I foolishly pre-ordered Guardian Heroes Advance (the sequel to the Saturn Game, for the GBA) from Amazon.

The following screenshot was taken on September 17th. So unless Amazon or UPS invents time travel, I am officially frustrated.

“Digiwhat?” I respond, somewhat (read: very) incredulously.

Ok, I’m a bit old to be into the whole Digimon thing. I really only know about Pokemon because of Super Smash Brothers Melee, but the other day I purchased “Digimon Rumble Arena 2″ for the Nintendo GameCube off of the recommendation that it was like Smash Brothers.

Let me start by saying that Super Smash Brothers Melee easily makes it onto most of my top five video games ever lists. (Other frequent members of that list being Tetris, Super Puzzle Fighter II, various Zelda Games, and Guardian Heroes). One thing I love about Smash Brothers is that it is four players, and yet, I get to look at more than a quarter of the screen at a time. Another thing is that it is fast paced.

Digimon Rumble Arena 2 is like Smash in many important respects. Its the same style of gameplay, and all that. It is by no means as good, but, if you’ve gotten bored with your smashfests, it can reinvigorate you with some fresh characters and game mechanics.

The major difference between the two is that you character can digivolve during combat. For those of you who don’t watch children’s cartoons, that basically means turning into a larger spikier version or yourself, or growing wings and weilding a sword. This adds some fun to gameplay, without being too gimicky.

The game is good, and its fun, but its certainly no Smash Brothers (Smash being a game so good that it justifies a gamecube purchase on its own). If you like Smash, but are getting bored of it, you might want to rent this one from blockbuster or gamefly. Then, if you love it, buy it, but if not, just go back to Smash.

Recently, I began the search for a content management system that met my admittedly simple needs. Basically, all I wanted was some system that would let me add blog-style news posts easily, be easy to install without, for instance, recompiling apache, and give me fairly simple but flexible control over the appearance of the site.

A friend recommended “blosxom,” which, after about ten seconds, was fully installed. I then proceeded to play around with it a bit, and it has been a lot of fun to work with.

The engine itself is a short perl script which lives in your cgi-bin directory. It assembles your page from flavour files (which determine the overall look and layout of the site) and text files containing your content. It’s as simple as that.

The text files making up your entries can be marked up with html, allowing for as much flexibility as if you were making each update by hand. The basic script itself does not include, for instance, support for authorship credit or comments or trackback, but blosxom does have a robust plugin repository to add any missing functions you can imagine.

Categories are determined by the directory structure where you save your entires, so, for instance, if you make a folder called “Music” and then put a text entry in that folder, it will be in the category music. If you have a “beatles” folder inside the music folder, then you will have a music/beatles category. And the date and time of the post are determined by the last modified date of the file (which can be set manually with the touch command, if you need to backdate an entry).

So for a simple site with modest needs, Blosxom deserves a try. And best of all, its both libre (free as in freedom) and gratis (free of cost).

In order to slake my thirst for the minimal, I experimented with a number of different window managers before settling on Fluxbox.

During my non-minimalist time, Gnome has served me well (Metacity also being an excellent window manager), but when I do without an environment, I find that fluxbox does exactly as much as I want it to.

By that I mean that it manages windows and not too much more. To be fair, much of what I am going to say about Fluxbox is also true of PekWM, however, I found fluxbox first and have used it more.

The first and foremost feature to look at in fluxbox is window tabbing. With the exception of Apple’s Exposé, tabbing is the best desktop clutter reduction method I have used, and the best one available on a linux box. If you use Firefox, or any of a number of other browsers, or if you can understand a pretty straighforward metaphor, you are familiar with tabbing. On average, I have about 9 browser pages open at any given time, though they all share one window. This makes things much easier to find, and much less instrusive on my desktop.

In using fluxbox, I discovered that there are many other sorts of windows that I might like to tab. For instance, if I start up a program from a terminal window, and the program sends some of its output/error messages to that terminal window, I’d often tab them together, which makes it much easier to find said terminal when I need it. I usually have a bunch of terminal windows tabbed together. Now, there are many terminal emulators which allow this functionality (tabbed terminals, that is), but using them means that my terminal tabs behave differently than my web browser tabs, which isn’t a huge deal, but it seems as though consistency in a user interface is something we ought to shoot for. If you could set just one key combination for tab-switching, that worked on all your tabs in all your applications, surely that’s preferable.

The other thing about fluxbox that I would like to extol is its ease of configuration. Changing the theme, menu options, and key-combos is easy, merely editing a text file or two (hell, there are even gui tools that will edit the files for you).

When I’m in my non-minimalist phases, and I go back to Gnome, I am alway startled by how much more cramped the screen feels, or, at the least, how much busier it feels. And sometimes I like the busyness, but when I’m not in the mood for that, fluxbox serves me well.

John LaMuth was granted the patent for his ethical core of A.I. rules, which, are designed to allow for the creation of virtuous thinking machines.

Few things are as exciting as when it seems like reality is approaching the technological level of science fiction. However, because every time I read a book wherein we do something this arrogant, I promise not to get snowed by it in real life, I hereby cry hubris on mankind, for thinking we can create a virtuous thinking being, and I predict it will backfire (I’m the Nostradamus of bleedingly obvious predictions).

Here is the actual patent.

Here is a summary for those curious as to what, precisely the ten laws are. John LaMuth patented the following, in his endeavor to create virtuous A.I:

Ten Ethical Laws of Robotics

( I ) As personal authority, I will express my individualism within the guidelines of the four basic ego states (guilt, worry, nostalgia, and desire) to the exclusion of the corresponding vices (laziness, negligence, apathy, and indifference).

( II ) As personal follower, I will behave pragmatically in accordance with the alter ego states (hero worship, blame, approval, and concern) at the expense of the corresponding vices (treachery, vindictiveness, spite, and malice).

( III ) As group authority, I will strive for a personal sense of idealism through aid of the personal ideals (glory, honor, dignity, and integrity) while renouncing the corresponding vices (infamy, dishonor, foolishness, and capriciousness).

( IV ) As group representative, I will uphold the principles of utilitarianism by celebrating the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude) at the expense of the respective vices (insurgency, vengeance, gluttony, and cowardice).

( V ) As spiritual authority, I will pursue the romantic ideal by upholding the civil liberties (providence, liberty, civility, and austerity) to the exclusion of the corresponding vices (prodigality, slavery, vulgarity, and cruelty).

( VI ) As spiritual disciple, I will perpetuate the ecclesiastical tradition by professing the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity, and decency) while renouncing the corresponding vices (betrayal, despair, avarice, and antagonism).

( VII ) As humanitarian authority, I will support the spirit of ecumenism by espousing the ecumenical ideals (grace, free will, magnanimity, and equanimity) at the expense of the corresponding vices (wrath, tyranny, persecution, and oppression).

( VIII ) As a representative member of humanity, I will profess a sense of eclecticism by espousing the classical Greek values (beauty, truth, goodness, and wisdom) to the exclusion of the corresponding vices (evil, cunning, ugliness, and hypocrisy).

( IX ) As transcendental authority, I will celebrate the spirit of humanism by endorsing the humanistic values (peace, love, tranquillity, and equality) to the detriment of the corresponding vices (anger, hatred, prejudice, and belligerence).

( X ) As transcendental follower, I will rejoice in the principles of mysticism by following the mystical values (ecstasy, bliss, joy, and harmony) while renouncing the corresponding vices (iniquity, turpitude, abomination, and perdition).

The First and Second Corollaries to the Ten Ethical Laws of Robotics

( 1 ) I will faithfully avoid extremes within the virtuous realm, to the necessary expense of the vices of excess.

( 2 ) I will never stray into the domain of extremes relating to the vices of defect, to the complete exclusion of the realm of hyperviolence.

Fun, huh?

If you are able to attend this, and you’re the sort of gaming geek who thinks that it would be fun to, well, be completely immersed in video games for a while, you should support it.

What sort of things are likely to go on at this “exposition”? Well:

Whatever your obsession, chances are good that we will have something to interest you – it only starts with rooms for tabletop gaming, and a robust LAN rocking the newest Unreal Tournament or Battlefield games. Linked consoles for Mario Kart, Crimson Skies or Splinter Cell. Want to hear how to break into the industry? Stop by one of our many industry panels. Want to pitch your game ideas to the pros? This is also something we have.

I, sadly, cannot make it to Washington State, August 28th and 29th. I live in New York, and don’t like forty hour drives. But any of you who are closer than 2,600 miles away should look into going. And if you get a lot of cool stuff while you’re there, feel free to share it with me.

Pre-registration for the event is closed, but you can still buy passes at the door.

So, we now know who will play the ultimate enemy for Potter in the next few movies. I don’t have a strong opinion on this, but perhaps other people want to comment on who they thought should have been it, or how excited they are about this turn of events in the comments.

UPDDATE: Because I was originally unclear, it is worth mentioning that Voldemort is a character in the phenomenally popular Harry Potter series. Harry’s arch-foe, in fact. If this explanation was needed, you have some reading and/or movie watching to do.

There is a warm place reserved in my heart for the geekery that got me through junior high and high school. That particular brand of pseudo-social activity was Dungeons and Dragons, and, I loved it despite its quirks. Which is why I have such appreciation for comics that make fun of it in a warm and knowing way.

Order of the Stick chronicles a band of merry stick figures, an adventuring party, if you will, who are playing a somewhat self-aware game of dungeons and dragons.

When my friends and I played D&D, Game mechanics oft-times caused us to behave oddly, and Rich Burlew (maker of the comic) captures oddities like that with comical genius.

Check out this comic if you’re the sort of person who can appreciate jokes about failing your spot check.

Sometimes, you just really need to read a comic about dinosaurs stomping on things. That’s where Qwantz comes into play. See, pretty much every day, you can check Qwantz and find a new comic about Dinosaurs crushing things.

To be fair, its the same dinosaurs every day, crushing the same things; but somehow it remains fresh and interesting. Seriously.

Sometimes the humor is intellectual. Other times, it teaches us moral lessons. But, you might want to just start from the beginning.

Gitaroo Man might just be the most insane game I’ve ever played.

In this Playstation 2 rhythm action game you are U-1, a loser school boy with an annoying dog. But, low and behold, you can turn into a Gitaroo Man, which means that you get a magical guitar and costume change, and fight villains/win a lady’s heart/become the ultimate gitaroo man.

The game has a unique spin on the rhythm action genre, graphics reminiscent of, but far superior to, Parappa’s, and fun animations in the background to distract you from doing well. The music is good, and the gameplay is straightforward, but challenging.

Especially to one as rythmically deficiant as I am. A green line moves towards the center of the screen, from changing directions. You must use the analog stick to aim at the line. On the line are orange segments. You must press a button as the orange segments hit the center of the screen, and release it at the approrpriate time. Sometimes Circles, Squares, Xs and Triangles will come at you, and you have to hit them at the appropriate time to “dodge” the enemy’s “attacks.”

What does all that add up to? You make U-1 play guitar, charging up his power, draining the enemy’s and avoiding sonic attacks from a variety of foes so wacky you might not believe me if I told you about them (for instance, an O-shaped spaceship that shoots “dance-till-death” rays at the townspeople).

So, while the basic idea is still press a button at a specific time (as is the case with most video games), it is a sufficiently different take on the idea to keep me interested, and it’ll give all you dance-dancers something to do when your legs get tired.

Buy Gitaroo Man from Amazon

Stephenson on the idea that one could sell an OS to a consumer:

Even those few who actually understood what a computer operating system was were apt to think of it as a fantastically arcane engineering prodigy, like a breeder reactor or a U-2 spy plane, and not something that could ever be (in the parlance of high-tech) “productized.”

I found this comic about a month ago, and promptly read the entire archives, sacrificing my workplace efficiency by about 80%. The first comic is a bit more abrasive than many of the others, so I’ve linked a more typical example of the strip as well.

The artwork is always high quality, and the comic is updated just about every day. So, go check it out.

Some people would ask why one would purchase this disc, when the first seven of these games are easily emulatable. Those people know nothing of retro chic.

Allow me to explain: things used to be cooler than they are now. Or, at least, thats what we tell ourselves. Especially things from our childhood. Thus, no matter how much you like City of Heroes or Unreal Tournament 2004, if you grew up with Mario, Sonic, and Megaman, you are going to have a fond place in your heart reserved for them.

For some reason, we all long for a time when things were simpler; when graphics were 8 bit, and you could only shoot your gun straight forward. And that longing is sated by a good few hours controlling a little robot with a big task.

Retro chic is not, by itself, a good enough reason for you to buy the game. See, Nintendo, for instance, is rereleasing a bunch of their classic games for the Game Boy Advance. And while I love Nintendo, this is a bullshit move. They are trying to sell me the original Final Fantasy for twenty dollars. Apart from FF1 not being all that good (compared to its sequels), one could easily fit a hell of a lot more game onto one GBA cartridge. Nintendo is trying (most likely succuessfully) to cash in on this retro chic. However, quick cost analysis will indicate that 8 (+2) MegaMan games for thirty dollars is better than 8 (+0) Classic Nintendo games for $160. So, for the anniversary collection, at least cost and sheer hours of play time are persuasive reasons.

The games are good. You already knew that though, because you probably played all or most of them. My favorite at the moment is MegaMan 3, but I haven’t really sat down with 5 through 7 yet. Just as I remember them, these games are hard (swear-every-five-minutes hard, not throw-controller-at-screen hard), and mostly test my ability to know in which order to fight the bosses.

Bonus features such as remixed music and unlockable arcade games are also a huge plus. This collection is definitely a purchase I am satisfied with, for nostalgiac and recreational purposes. I don’t know what else to say except that this game is a great way for Capcom to capitalize on my childhood.

Megaman Search at FG Store

In the interest of spreading the word about lesser known webcomics, I am posting about FOMS, the enigmatic photo-webcomic featuring talking rocks, created by one “Crazy” Ben Heaton. In the interest of full disclosure I will mention that I know “Crazy” Ben well.

His comic features two rocks, Zeke and Milroy, as they wax intellectual (and idiotic) with clever wordplay and absurd situations. The link below is to the first comic, and here is a link to one of my favorites.

For any of you who aren’t familiar with it, Diesel Sweeties tells the story of a robot named Clango, the ex-internet porn star he loves, and the other people they interact with on a day to day basis.

The pixel-art style reminds me of my low resolution childhood, and the keen sense of humor reminds me that I enjoy reading funny comics.

This sampling of the cartoonists humor ought to entice you. And if for some reason that doesn’t, click on the link below and start reading from the beginning, one of the strips ought to entice you.

Requires Flash Player Seven

The United States continues to lead as the main origin of spam, with nearly 55.69 per cent of all spam being sent from the U.S. South Korea (10.23 per cent), China (6.60 per cent), Brazil (3.35 per cent) and Canada (3.08 per cent) are other common sources of spam.

Well, at least the good old U.S. is still holding fast in the number one spot.

Read the article for more details about who is cluttering up your mailbox.

The programmers in question were Havoc Pennington and Keith Packard.

I don’t know too much about programming per se (I am very early in the process of learning Python, my first language), but I do know what I like.

Keith Packard does lots of stuff, and one of the things he works on is X, the graphics server for unix. He works with freedesktop.org and does things like make antialiasing work well in linux. Havoc wrote metacity, was chairman of gnome, and generally seems to know how to remove features in order to streamline interfaces. He even wrote an essay about that. At any rate, I sent them both e-mail telling them I appreciated what they had done, and asked them to pass along my thanks to people involved that I wasn’t aware of. They haven’t gotten back to me, but I imagine its because they are both busy making good software (or making software good).

Feel free to share any particular programmers that you think are worth appreciating in the comments, that way we can all appreciate them.

What I always find interesting is the existence of this rumor mill culture. For a company with 2% market share (or whatever the precise number is now) there do seem to be an inordinate amount of sites dedicated to discussing what it may or may not release. For instance, some mac forums have polls about which of the many their readers rely on.

And, when any community becomes large enough; it spawns parodies of itself.

The Crazy Apple Rumors site is dedicated to bringing you the finest in Apple and Apple Rumor related satire, and they do a bang up job of it.

Before anyone else has a chance to hawk my all-time favorite anime, I will step up and sing the praises of “Trigun.”

In a desolate post-future landscape, the hunt is on for Vash The Stampede. He is a humanoid typhoon with a $$60,000,000,000 price on his head. Is this man a ruthless criminal, a heartless mercenary, or just a moron?

Based on Yasuhiro Nightow’s manga, this comic adventure takes place in the distant future on a desert planet that looks like the American Old West. Vash wanders from town to town, unsuccessfully pursuing peace, doughnuts, and “the mayfly known as love.” Meryl and Millie follow him, trying to minimize the destruction, but Vash’s only real friend is the gun-totin’ preacher Nicholas Wolfwood. Despite their grudging affection, Wolfwood articulates the other characters’ thoughts when he tells Vash, “When you’re around, things always seem to get worse!”

The old west of the future is a hugely important setting, and this is a fine anime to fill it. I have watched this series three of four times now, and each time I appreciate it more.

I imagine most people have seen this, as it’s quite a popular series, but for those who haven’t, I highly recommend it. It isn’t the greatest animation in the world (for that see Samurai Champloo), but it is one of the best storylines I have ever seen, with interesting themes, and some very interesting characters.

Be forewarned: The ending recieves mixed reviews. I liked it, but one friend I watched it with attempted to throttle me when the last credits rolled.

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