More news for cave-dwellers - the Supreme Court ruled this week that government employees are not protected by the first amendment when engaging in "speech" (which may actually be written or electronic, not necessarily spoken) as part of their jobs. The problem with this decision, IMO, is its effect on public employees who report fraud, waste, or abuse within their workplaces. As this article explains (and this article, and this one), it is actually a job requirement for some federal employees to report fraud through official channels. But if they report said fraud (which, I know, is extremeley rare in federal government), they have no constitutional protection for that speech. They can be demoted, fired, or sued based on what they say.

Interestingly, this appeal was first heard by the Supreme Court last October, while Sandra Day O'Connor was still on the court. The votes then were 5-4 in favor of first amendment protection for this kind of speech. She retired before the decision was completed, however, so the case was reheard with Samuel Alito replacing O'Connor, essentially putting him in a position to decide a 4-4 tie. And the decision went the other way - to restrict the rights of government whistleblowers.

Does it bother anyone else that the only time constitutional rights are vigorously defended are when it's the sanctity of a congressman's office involved?

Major Nelson reports that The Outfit and Burnout Revenge are now available for $39.99. Check it out.

For those of you looking for 150fps in Oblivion on the PC, Nvidia is prepping a pretty hefty video card (link to The Register). Depending on your age, to buy this card you will either have to sell your little brother or get a 2nd mortgage.

Jeez I hope nobody comes here for news, but just in case you live in a cave (with an Xbox 360 and full HD/surround-sound system, of course), Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were found guilty, guilty, GUILTY! Yay for justice.

Engadget has an article discussing a "back-room deal" between major studios to hold off on implementing the Image Constraint Tag (which forces non-HDCP-compliant systems to downgrade HD video playback to 540p), at least until 2010. If true this means that HD-DVD discs purchased over the next four years (at least) will play in full resolution via component cables from your Xbox 360.

Gives you time to upgrade to an HDCP-compliant television, and gives MS time to consider options for making the Xbox 360 HDCP compliant.

User ToastedSoul posted the following link on Major Nelson's blog. Gives some insight into the patent-infringement lawsuit between Immersion and Sony over rumble feedback technology - possibly one of the reasons Sony elected to not include rumble in the PS3's controllers.

Gamasutra report on lawsuit
Major Nelson's blog

General Electric has found an innovative way to deal with the growing number of TiVos and other commercial-skipping DVRs. In their latest "great things GE is doing for you" commercial, they have an elephant mimicing Gene Kelly's Dancing In The Rain bit while a bunch of other jungle creatures watch. Man, the things they can train elephants to do...

Anyway, near the end of the commercial, they put a dozen or so still-frames (into a single second, hence the name) with biographies of the "cast". Cute stories about scandal and intrigue in the earlier lives of the elephant, toucan, python, etc. If you have a TiVo, the commercial triggers the "Press Thumbs Up For More" icon on the screen, which takes you to a description of the gimmick and replayable copies of both versions of the commercial (half the "cast" is covered in each version).

It's not laugh-out-loud funny or anything, but it's a neat idea to grab your attention and get you to stop and think about GE - or about the epidemic of peanut addiction among elephants, whatever.

Lexus has a TiVo-tagged commercial that will take you to a "car builder" applet and dealer-finder that run on the TiVo. The applet is pretty weak - you can only pick exterior and interior color - no options, but it's a step in the right direction for companies trying to integrate into the DVR culture.

The other day I was watching a Dominos commercial and wondered why pizza delivery places weren't the first to jump all over TiVo's Thumbs Up For More feature. Here's a tool that allows my commercial - intended to get you all drooling over my delicious hot sausage...pizza - to also give you a way to instantly get the number of your local delivery location (TiVo knows your zip code; that's how it gets your cable channel lineups). Even better yet, since all TiVos with a subscription to the service have either a modem or broadband connection to the internet, let me build my pizza and order it right from the TiVo! First pizza joint to do this, wins.

Link to IGN article

This quote struck me as a bit contrived:

"On top of it all, Sony has embroiled itself in the next-generation DVD format war, challenging its many HD-DVD supporting consumer electronics competitors with the Blu-ray format."

To be fair, both Microsoft and Sony have "embroiled" themselves in the next-gen DVD format war. Plenty of CE manufacturers and content owners have sided with Blu-ray, and others have sided with HD-DVD. I don't think Sony is at a particular disadvantage due to their format choice, except for one thing: If you buy a PS3, you must buy a Blu-ray player, seeing as how it's embedded in the unit. The Xbox 360 has an advantage in that although you don't get any type of HD media player out-of-the-box, you have the option to upgrade if you want. Currently, your only upgrade path is to HD-DVD, but who's to say Microsoft can't release a Blu-ray drive down the road, if that format comes out on top?

Anyway, I agree with the article's general points about Sony's financial situation and the pressure on PS3, but I don't think Blu-ray - as a format choice - is necessarily a part of the problem. Yet.

Read about it at Major Nelson's blog.

At E3 2006, I and my fellow Xbox MVPs got to play MGS' Gears of War for about 15 minutes in 4-on-4 elimination. Really, really fun, though my impression might be colored somewhat by the fact that my team (MVP's GODFREE, Zamees, DirtyDiva, and myself, playing COG soldiers) PWN3D the Locust team (some group of no-skill hacks; I think S4Lee and RhyzeXUG were among them). They took the first round, but we took the next 6 or 7.

Anyway, in multiplayer teamwork is the key and this game reinforces that idea. A very neat twist is the ability of a teammate to revive you if you get "almost killed". When your health drops just so far, you slump to the ground and if a teammate can get to you before the enemy finishes you off, they can revive you to continue the fight. Very cool, and I speak from experience - I got almost-whacked in one of the rounds, but was revived in time to help eliminate the last Locust goon.

Another great idea - put a chainsaw on the underside of the standard assault rifle, and let players slice eachother in half head-to-toe. Gibtastic!

If the SP story is good, this will be a must-own.

Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, is defending the administraton's plans to send troops to the Mexican border, but he was singing a very different tune last December (link to Media Matters).

Apparently the administration didn't learn anything about what happens when you discount what intelligence experts say: Jump to Talking Points Memo.

Maybe the CIA et al. should just say to the VP, "tell us what you want the intelligence to say, and we'll type it up". The Enron method of intelligence analysis...

For those not familiar: the game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a glitch whereby you can duplicate almost any item in your inventory. Need an extra 100 Daedric Warhammers? No problem. Another 50 Grand Soul Gems, filled with Grand Souls? Poof!

The Xbox forms are buzzing with arguments about this glitch and the "cheaters" who use it. I use the glitch to duplicate ingredients. I decided that my character knows where to find whatever he needs, and buying Cheese Wheels and sacks of Flour was not contributing to my enjoyment of the game, so I was happy to use the glitch to eliminate what I saw as a boring part of the gameplay.

I don't understand how my taking advantage of a glitch in this way would be of any interest to anyone else, seeing how Oblivion is a single-player game. And I really don't understand why it would make some people as angry as they seem to get! Wow - how about if everybody plays the game in whatever way they find most enjoyable, and we don't bash eachother over our choices?

I bit the bullet and created an MSN Space so I can be a cool blogger like...pretty much everybody else in the world. Why should you care? That's a very good question and to be honest I'm not sure you should!

If you visit you're likely to find comments about video gaming (chiefly Xbox), computer science/IT, politics, economics, social issues, flying, and llamas.

If I stay true to form, I will blog often in the first few weeks, then less often, dwindling to a trickle within 6 months. A slow decay, beginning...now.