It's always half empty...

The latest U.N. Human Development Index was able to include a ranking on Afghanistan for the first time.

It found that the non-drug economy is growing at 16 percent a year.

Growth is expected to average 10-12 percent a year for the next decade.

More than half of school-age children are enrolled in school.

So what does The New York Timeslead with?

Three years after the United States drove the Taliban out and vowed to rebuild Afghanistan, the war-shattered country ranked 173rd of 178 countries in the U.N. 2004 Human Development Index, according to a new report from the United Nations.

It isn't until paragraph five that the reader reads anything positive about the situation there.

I'm not suggesting a whitewash. Afghanistan has problems in spades. But how about a little balance right off the top? Come on, it's not hard. Maybe something like:

Three years after the United States drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the economy is booming and half its children are in school, although the war-shattered country could easily slip back into chaos, according a new United Nations report.

The article also gives no comparative numbers. We are supposed to think that a 25-percent jobless rate is bad, but since we don't know what the rate was before, we can't know for sure.

That applies to the 54 percent of school-age children enrolled in school, too.

Since this is the first year the U.N. has included Afghanistan in its survey, it may be tough to come by comparative figures.

But somebody should have some estimates, no?

Jalopnik nixes Spyker

Car blogging site Jalopnik has a post up dissing the latest offering from Spyker.

I don't care what they say, these cars are suh-weet.

Spyker (originally a Dutch aircraft maker, hence all the intake ports and cockpit-like interior) had some cars at the Beijing Auto Show last year, and it was one of the few exhibits that drew me back for multiple visits. The others were Ford (new 'Stang and GT), GM (for the new Caddy line-up) and Lamborghini (duh).

Posting will be light this week because my folks are in town and I'm taking some time off.

How NOT to stamp out piracy

Let's say you are an ambitious DVD pirate, and your agents have infiltrated a major movie studio with the aim of sabatoging their anti-piracy efforts. The studio wants to convince people to pay a little extra for legit DVDs and it is your goal to derail these efforts.

What could you do?

Well, you might annoy viewers by putting a hectoring anti-piracy spot in the DVD before the actual film starts.

You might even put a commercial advertisement in as well.

Heck, why stop at one? You could put in two, three, or even seven commercials! It's so crazy it just might work!

Now, for the final, aggravating touch that will ensure no consumer will ever again buy one of this studio's legitimate DVDs, you might make it impossible for viewers to skip, fast forward, or even stop the DVD player while these ads are running.

Amazingly, Sony has done all of the above with the release in mainland China of the DVD for its movie Kung Fu Hustle.

I kid you not, every time you start the DVD, it launches into the anti-piracy harangue, then goes into a total of seven ads, including one for Sony Ericsson mobile telephones. One of the commercials is even repeated in case you missed it the first time.

All this takes up about five minutes and the only way to stop the process is to turn off your DVD player. You cannot skip, stop, or jump directly to the movie menu.

As a believer that the creators of products I consume should be paid for their efforts, I try to buy legit product whenever I can. This is not easy in China, where you have to go considerably out of your way to find non-pirated movies and software, and then pay 10-20 times the price of what you would pay illicitly. It has, however, been great for Amazon.com, which rings up not only the sale of the product itself, but also scores the international shipping charges, which typically have plumper margins than the physical products themselves. Anyway, this sort of anti-consumer practice is enough to make even me reconsider buying more Sony product, at least the stuff that is churned out locally.

And it really is a great way to push Chinese consumers deeper into the arms of media pirates. Every Chinese I talk to who knows about this has barked: "This is a great reason not to buy legitimate DVDs!"

Way to go, Sony!

Rosenblog hates iPods!

Okay, I'm exaggerating. But Seattle's Matt Rosenberg really comes out swinging in a post arguing that iPods, laptops and cellphones are alienating Americans from each other, walling us off in our own virtual worlds, eroding the social mortar that binds the bricks of humanity, etc etc.

As a huge fan of technology, including but not limited to iPods, WiFi, instant messaging, video games, 10-cylinder sports cars, scramjet airplanes, nanotechnology, stem cell research, and sharks with head-mounted "lasers", I think Matt's take on the negative effects of modern consumer products is overly dour.

I sympathize with Matt's desire for more cohesive, in-touch communities, and while I don't have any figures or studies to back this up, I think a case can be made that technology may be bringing people closer rather than walling them off from each other.

If those people in the coffee shops didn't have wireless laptops, they wouldn't necessarily be doing volunteer work at the local soup kitchen or helping their elderly neighbor with her compost pile, they'd be stuck in a cubicle somewhere, even more walled off than they are now.

And they probably aren't IM'ing "other strangers", but more likely a distant work colleague or friend whom they may otherwise not be in touch with. I know I'm in contact with far more people than I was five years ago. And it's mainly because I can be in touch with them. Technology is the enabler.

Part of the problem is viewing the phenomenon in isolation. You walk into a coffee shop and, holy crap, it's a bunch of people geeking out with their latest toy, oblivious to the world around them. But what you don't see is how they then put the laptop or iPod away, get in their car and drive to the nursing home to deliver fruit baskets, or go coach the Little League game, or whatever.

Listening to an iPod on a bus isn't that far removed from reading a book. In some ways, it's better: at least if you're listening to music, your eyes can still engage the environment and take stock of interesting things and people. You can't smile at someone whose eyes are glued to a book. And it's not like once you've put in your earbuds you're obligated to listen to your entire music collection non-stop. That's what the "pause" button is for. Use it.

I prefer to see how products like MP3 players are delivering a standard of living that was unimaginable even 20 years ago. I view it as an unmitigated good thing that I can carry a music collection of nearly 3,500 songs in a device the size of a pack of cards? I'm not plugged into my Rio Karma 24/7, but I frequently carry it with me because I never know when I will have a chance to listen to some tunes. With a young kid at home and wife not fond of my beloved rock and blues music, I need to snatch whatever chance I have to weave some song into my life.

I'd also look to see what the effects of technology are close to home. Sure people might zone out on the bus or while popping out at work for coffee, but are they ignoring neighbors and family? Are they venturing out less? In the case of teens, okay, maybe. I sure spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone and in front of the TV as a youth, much to my parents' chagrin. But you know what? I grew out of that.

People naturally gravitate towards face-to-face interactions as they get older. Technology gets subsumed into the background rather than taking the spotlight at the forefront. My kid will grow up with IM as just another communication tool, in the same way I grew up with the telephone. But in the end, we all enjoy a cup of coffee with mom or a beer with the buddies. And who wouldn't rather engage in a vigorous game of naked Twister than go over tomorrow's big Power Point presentation one last time?

As with a lot of other things, it's about moderation. American civil society is not going to crumble just because I've got The Black Keys pounding my eardrums while I step out for some milk.

Sure, they *say* it's for peaceful uses only...

This is truly bizarre.

The Web site of Discover magazine has a short article about a naturally occuring nuclear reactor in Gabon. When water trickles through some uranium deposits, it speeds up a fission reaction that creates enough heat to boil the water. When the water is boiled off, the reaction stops. It even stores its own waste.

I'll be suspicious if Gabon suddenly says it found a "naturally occuring" nuclear bomb, though.

Considering "Consider Phlebas"

I just finished Consider Phlebas, the first sci-fi book (published 1987) by British author Iain M. Banks.

Although Banks is accorded much praise in sci-fi circles, I found it somewhat of a chore to finish the book.

The story follows the adventures of Horza, one of the last Changers, people who can alter their physical appearance to resemble others, possess intricate control over physiological processes, and have several built-in weapons, such as retractable poisoned fangs and the ability to produce poison and acid through their saliva or sweat glands.

Horza is an agent for the Idirans, a race of large, three-legged aliens who are at war with the Culture -- the most advanced segment of human civilization. Horza despises the Culture for their amoralistic over-reliance on machines and technology.

The Idirans dispatch Horza to retrieve a Mind -- essentially an extremely advanced AI created by the Culture to help them win the war -- that has crash-landed on an icy planet controlled by a fearsome, god-like alien power.

Horza's main adversary is an agent of the Culture's "Special Circumstances" unit, who is also charged with recovering the Mind. Although mortal adversaries, the two nonetheless develop grudging respect and even affection for each other.

This backstory and tension between the two main characters are the most compelling parts of the book, but they never really get the attention they deserve. Instead, Horza lurches from crisis to crisis, finding himself variously fighting for life aboard a mercenary vessel, locked in a chaotic laser battle in a temple, nearly devoured alive by a horrifying fat man grown to Jabba-the-Hutt-like proportions, and observing a deadly futuristic card game. These random incidents are entertaining and even gripping when considered alone. But as part of the same storyline they seem too disconnected from one another and I kept wondering how they were going to all tie together. They never do.

Only the final third or so of the book deals with the main mission to recover the Mind. This part is fairly fastpaced, and Banks deftly spools out a number of different threads before finally weaving them all back together for a dramatic finale, which is unfortunately diminished by not really being all that final.

Banks turns out competent, even inspired prose. Some reviewers have found his use of laser beams and hyperspace drives a bit trite, but c'mon, it was 1987, and he supplies enough twists and fresh interpretations to make those things interesting even today. The book's most horrifyingly imaginative parts -- the aforementioned fat man, who eats people alive with various sets of razor-sharp steel false teeth, the card game in which losing hands are punished by killing off a member of the player's team -- are also the best. Banks is certainly not lacking in the imagination department.

But while it may be the case that, as has been suggested in other reviews, Horza was written as a morally ambiguous character, even an anti-hero, we still learn too little about why, exactly, he hates the Culture and what makes their reliance on extremely advanced technology so reprehensible in his eyes. It seems we are supposed to view Horza as a true rogue, one who uses and discards other people for his own ends in the same way that he can discard his physical appearance. But he is also given to acts of great selflessness, good humor, and honor, severely undercutting this "bad guy" cred.

It is probable that this moral ambiguity -- in the portrayal of both Horza and the background war -- is the intent of the author, and is supposed to make the novel sophisticated and thought-provoking. But without a strong moral component to drive the tension, I was simply left wondering, as I read the final passages, why I should care about anything I had just read.

My Mac ad idea

Joe Wilcox at Jupiter Research's Microsoft Monitor Blog writes about how the software giant should use more context-based advertising.

He says Apple's ads have had a "contextual, emotive quality" while Microsoft's have tended to be dry and brochure-like. He dashes off three examples of ad ideas that he feels would sell Microsoft's products more effectively.

After Santa gave my wife an Apple iBook for Christmas, I noticed a couple of behavioral changes in us that would make the foundation for a great Apple commercial.

I'm a journalist and my wife is a musician. That means I sit and type all day and try to be clever with words, while she of course is concerned with being in tune, having the right timing, etc.

However, my favorite program on the Mac is GarageBand. Now, I have even less musical talent than most of this year's Grammy winners, which is saying a lot. I really dig music, but I just can't, for the life of me, sing in key or play an instrument even as basic as the kazoo. But with GB, I can sit there and drag and drop loops until the cows come home. It's the editing process that grips me -- making sure that cymbal comes in at just the right time, that the British Invasion guitar doesn't drag on for too long, that the strings aren't too overwhelming. Or the satisfaction that comes with discovering that "Rural Banjo 3" actually goes really well with "Dance Club Beat 16".

My wife, on the other hand, is quite taken with the word processor. I forget what it's called -- iText, probably, or something like that. What she likes to do is sit down and write little "Sex and the City" style essays about stuff happening in Beijing.

So the Mac enables a writer with no musical talent to create songs in his spare time, while a musician with no previous interest in writing is now compelled to compose essays.

In the interest of balancing out the edge Microsoft is sure to gain from following Wilcox's advice, I offer the above as an ad outline to Steve Jobs. It would start by cutting between shots of some scribbler pounding away at his keyboard all day, and a woman exhausted after hours in the recording studio. They come home and sit down at their respective Macs. Soon, the guy is jamming away on GarageBand while she is typing away furiously on a novel she is writing or something.

I'll leave it to Apple's marketing department to work out the actual script and shots, though I suppose it will be hard to find an actor that conveys the sort of rugged yet sophisticated manliness I am known for.

This one's free, though if Jobs wants to flip an iPod or a Mac mini my way, I won't complain.

Searching for searches on searching for pizza

Todd Bishop, Microsoft reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, follows up on an ad for MSN Search he saw in Redmond.

The ad showed the terms "pizza in Redmond" entered in an MSN Search bar. So Bishop compared how MSN stacked up on that particular search against Google, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves. He provides links so you can see the results for yourself.

What's really funny, though, is that Bishop's post is now listed as the 5th result on Yahoo. So searching for "pizza in Redmond" now takes you to a blog entry about doing searches for "pizza in Redmond".

The Wall Sreeet Journal has an op-ed saying that CNN was wrong to sack news chief Eason Jordan.

The op-ed points out that while Jordan's remark -- that U.S. soldiers in Iraq were intentionally targetting journalists -- was dumb and indefensible, he immediately backed away from them.

A journalist colleague of mine commented:

Weird. I don't know how I feel about this. His comments were probably inappropriate, as we discussed. Is his resignation necessary? It kind of feels like he's being sacrificed by "yer either with us, er yer against us" fever for questioning the holiness of something the troops did. At least that's the way the comments from the blog sound. Arthur Miller died the other day. Maybe it's time to re-read "The Crucible".

I didn't think they were comments he should have resigned over, either. But the threshold for sacking people for this sort of thing is falling. Nor is it confined to one side of the political debate. You get someone who says an inappropriate thing about gays, or immigrants, or whatever, and you might as well stick a fork in 'em. I would have thought CNN could have released the transcript or video of the remarks, along with a statement from Jordan clarifying what he meant, and apologizing if necessary. Then it would have blown over (unless, of course, his remarks were actually more damning...).

If nothing else, it should be an interesting case study for crisis management. Or mis-management.

World leader or "Flinstones" character?

The president of Indonesia is named Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

That is all.

Priorities

When we finally move back to the United States, here is a list of things I will do, in the order I plan to do them:

1. Buy a house.

2. Get a high-speed Internet connection.

3. Get Xbox Live.

4. Buy a car.

5. Enroll the kid at school.

Okay, this may not be entirely realistic. Since I already have a car in storage, I might get my kid edjumacated before buying another vehicle.

Referral

I just spied my first bizarre referral.

Someone came to this blog after searching Google for "ball slappery".

Hey, we don't go for ball slappery around here. Dick slappery, yes. Ball popping, sure.

But ball slappery represents a line that we're just not willing to cross.

Delta Force

No, not the crappy movie starring Chuck "Fucking Chuck Norris" Norris, but the book Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney.

In a comment on a Garfield Ridge post about lock-picking, someone mentioned how Delta members are taught to pick locks with everyday items like pieces of Coke cans.

It just reminded me what a cool book that was. Haney was in the first batch of soldiers to be selected and trained for Delta, and his story makes for fascinating reading.

It's a short read, divided roughly into three parts: 1) testing and selection for Delta 2) Delta training and 3) Delta assignments.

I read the book nearly two years ago, but many of the anecdotes have stuck with me.

For instance, during the selection process, they were told to prepare a 40-lb pack for a hike. Haney threw a couple extra pounds on just to be sure. At the start of the hike, the packs were weighed, only the scale was blank until it hit "40", so if your pack was only 39.5 lbs, the instructer would say, "As far as I can tell from this scale, your pack doesn't weigh anything. So to make sure you're carrying 40 lbs, you're going to have to carry this 40 lb block of concrete." At least one guy gave up on the spot.

They were also subjected to intrusive psychological tests. One question was, "Complete this sentence: 'I love my mother but...'". According to Haney, he answered, "No buts. I love my mother. Period."

Once they got into Delta, a lot of the training focused on pinpoint shooting. They would shoot up to 8 hours a day. The guys developed calluses on the flesh between the thumb and forefinger. They first shot at stationary targets with their preferred hand. Then with their "off" hand. Then they would shoot at them while walking, then running. They had elaboarte mock-ups of hostage situtations in rooms and airline cabins. As part of their final test, each of them took turns sitting in a chair in one of the mock-ups, surrounded by mannequins representing terrorists. While a guy sat there, his buddies had to bust in and clear the room with live ammo. Of course, you failed if you accidentally blew off the head of your fellow Delta teammate.

The part with Haney's actual missions was the thinnest bit, presumably because of secrecy issues. But it's still gripping stuff. Haney was on President Carter's failed helicopter mission to rescue the Iranian embassy hostages, and his account is practically worth the price of the book. Also interesting is his role in the Grenada invasion, and how some of the best-trained soldiers in the American military were taken out of action by an unexpectedly strong fusilade of machine-gun fire as they flew in.

This is one of those books filled with so much cool stuff, you'll frequently be telling your friends and colleagues, "Woah. Check this out..."

Zep gets Grammy

It's about damn time!

Zep was the greatest rock band of all time. Houses of the Holy single-handedly rescued me from Top 40 hell. My mother got me that album for Christmas in 1986. I was a confused high school freshman. I listened to nothing else for a month, and when I did, I turned my dial away from Seattle's pop radio station and tuned into rock station KISW and classic rock station KZOK.

From Zep it was an easy step to Hendrix, Deep Purple, The Beatles, The Who, and so on. I never looked back.

All hail the mighty Zep!

Insane Audi

The Audi A8L W12 sounds insane in the membrane.

The "12" comes from the fact that they stuck two V6 engines together. The "W" comes from the fact that those engines together form a "W" shape.

The result is 450 ponies and 0-60 in 5 seconds. For a car that weighs 5,000 pounds with two passengers.

Ludology, a great resource for interesting stuff on video game theory, has a somewhat cranky post up (dated Feburary 1) about that Iraq GI action figure kidnapping hoax from last week.

It starts thusly: "Things are incredibly fucked up in Iraq, no matter what CNN tells you."

Ooookay. Yeah, every time I need my daily dose of Pentagon propaganda, the first thing I do is tune into CNN's comfortingly panglossian coverage.

Search CNN.com on "Iraq", and the first stories actually about what is going on in the country are crazily positive ones like this, this, and this.

Right, but stuff about the U.S. and the troops is definitely sunnier than Death Valley at high noon, right? Sure, as this piece clearly proves.

"Probably people react in strange ways when arrogant pricks invade their country."

This strikes me as an odd thing to say the day after landmark elections that came off far better than anyone realistically expected. It is also simply a really mean thing to say about the tens of thousands of men and women who have been busting their asses every day to try to make things better for a country that has only known war, oppression and suffering for most of the last 30 years.

Does that descriptor apply to people like Chief Wiggles? Just wondering.

"Still, the use of a toy soldier is so symbolic that it could perfectly work as an artistic statement."

Get it? Like, the soldiers are just toys, man. Toys of The Man! It's not like these people actually asked to join the Army or anything...

Ludology should stick to what it does best -- highlight the latest scholarly musings on video game design and play. Hold the politics, please.

Charger Daytona

God help me, but I love in-your-face American muscle cars. Autoblog has some sweet pics of the 2006 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T.

I'm kind of partial to the orange one.

'Scuse me now, I have to hustle it on down to Uncle Jesse's to pick up Daisy before Boss Hogg gets there...

No nose job for Fifi

"West Hollywood May Ban Cosmetic Surgery for Pets". There's so much wrong in that headline it's hard to know where to start.

First, it is disturbing that there are people who actually waste time and money on giving Fido a face lift.

Second, that there are enough of these people, apparently concentrated in West Hollywood, for the city to consider imposing a ban.

Third, that paid government servants are actually wasting time debating whether to stop Tom and Jerry from getting a nip and tuck.

To be fair, when you read the story, it makes clear that the main concern is "tail-docking" and "ear-cropping", though other "non-therapeutic or cosmetic surgeries" would also be forbidden.

West Hollywood previously banned cat de-clawing.

No word on whether pets can still get botox injections.

Rollins

Last night I saw Henry Rollins, the thick-necked, muscle-bound, tattooed rock singer and spoken word, uh, performer (?) give an interview on the BBC. I saw Rollins in concert during the very first Lollapallooza. He was fronting "The Rollins Band" at that point. All I remember is him coming bare-chested, absolutely ripped, with this massive gothic sun tattooed across his entire back. His neck was about as thick as my torso.

Anyway, I tuned in just as Rollins was talking about the U.S. presidential election, and he was just saying how he voted for kerry. He had been doing a movie at the time. All the actors and actresses were very vocal about voting for Kerry. He alluded that the non-actor types on the set were basically very quiet about the election, and he assumed they were voting for Bush. Rollins said he wasn't surprised at all that Bush won, but he was bummed, and he said the next day some actress said something to him that really reflected how he felt. What the actress had said was that she felt the same way she did on Sept. 12, 2001.

I was slack-jawed, and apparently, so was the BBC reporter. To his credit, he asked incredulously, "But September 11 and the presidential election are totally different events! How can you compare them?"

Rollins said, "Yeah, I know, they are totally different, but it was the same feeling of depression, exhaustion and hopelessness."

Thankfully that proved to be the low point of the interview, and Rollins went on
to demonstrate intelligence and honesty. He's quite well spoken, answers questions straight and earnestly.

He was asked about his participation with the USO and why he went to Iraq and Afgahnistan to entertain the troops if was so opposed to the wars.

Rollins said that when he got the call from the USO he asked them if they had the right Henry Rollins, and suggested they might want to look at some of his recent material opposing Bush and the wars. The next day they called and said, "Well you sure are outspoken, but we want you anyway" (see, this is what crushing of dissent looks like in Ashkkkroft's Amerikkka!!!).

Then he was asked about his impression of the troops given Abu Ghraib and the
sense -- according the BBC reporter -- that "people in Iraq view the U.S as an occupying power". Rollins said Abu Ghraib was unquestionably wrong and that he had definitely met some lonely, tripping soldiers trying to cope with a surreal situation. But he said the Abu Ghraib types were a small percentage of the soldiers, a "drop in the ocean", and that you had bad soldiers just like you had some bad
cops.

Rollins was asked why he signed a bomb in Afghanistan, again in light of his anti-war activism. He said (and I paraphrase), "Yeah I really didn't want to do it but this officer was like, 'Sir we like to drop big bombs on bad people and would you please sign this bomb, sir! It would mean a lot to us if you signed this bomb, sir!Hooah!' And his guys were all pumped about me doing it and everyone was going 'Hooah!', and I figured it was better for me to swallow my personal view and do
something I didn't agree with but that meant a lot to these guys. I didn't want to say no to an officer trying to instill morale in his troops. These guys are waking up every day and going into the Hindu Kush mountains, they don't need some rock star saying no to them. And if any one disagrees with what I did, well, I take the hit for that."

Though I disagree with Rollins' stance on the war, I thought it was cool of him to set aside his ego and do something to help the troops, and then not try to duck it later but in fact take responsibility for it.

In all, Rollins came off as quite intelligent and stoked on democracy. He said a few times, in effect, "Yeah, I really don't like Bush but this is a democracy and America chose him and we have to live with that."

Sticking it up Sony's tailpipe

So I was thinking some more about Microsoft's upcoming "Forza Motorsport" for the Xbox. Of course it's being played as a potential slayer of Gran Tourismo 4, the premier driving title for the PlayStation 2 due out in the U.S. next month.

It's always a tough bet to try to out-do the best-in-class. Witness "Kill Zone", Sony's attempt at a "Halo-killer" that, from all accounts I read, never remotely lived up to the hype.

So why would Microsoft set itself the extremely high bar of trying to go one better than GT4? Failure will only swamp them with bad PR and potentially hex the Xbox for driving games, the same way the failure of "Sudeki" sort of made it seem like RPGs couldn't really be done on Microsoft's magic machine.

Set aside for a moment the fact that, from the most recent set of impressions, it appears that "Forza" may actually kick some serious ass. I wonder if the standard Microsoft has set for the game isn't so much to "beat" GT4 as to be just good enough to keep Xbox owners from defecting to Sony. Not defecting as in totally abandoning the Xbox, but at least as far as picking up a PS2 as a second machine in order to play games exclusive to that platform. I've certainly considered buying a PS2 in order to play stuff like that. But if "Forza" turns out to be any good, why would I want to spend another $150 for a PS2 plus $50 for GT4 when I can just spend $50 and get something nearly as good? And if they can plug "Forza" into Xbox Live in a significant way, that may actually swing things towards the 'Box a bit.

Ultra-realistic driving for the Xbox

Project Gotham Racing 2 is one of the best driving games on the Xbox. Although it has arcade-ish elements, like the "kudos" system that rewards flashy driving like power slides, it hewed more to the school of realism that tries to emulate real-world physics and driving performance as closely as possible.

I have a good half-dozen driving games for the Xbox, and have always viewed PGR2 (and its predecessor) as sort of like the nice sports car you keep in the garage -- great for taking out on weekend drives, but a bit much to have to deal with every single day. (Actually this was much more true for the first PGR, many of the difficulty issues were resolved in No. 2). Titles like Burnout 2 were more like daily drivers that you could log serious hours in without tiring.

Now it looks like Forza Motorsport is set to grab the realism crown, at least for the Xbox. Gamespy has the most in-depth preview of the game I've seen yet, and it sounds stunning.

The developers have taken hundreds of engine, car and environmental factors into account to try to make the most realistic driving game ever. Road temperature, tire condition, and the quality of individual engine parts will affect how the cars drive. Unlike the PlayStation 2's Gran Tourismo, the cars can get damaged, with corresponding impact on performance.

I'm revved like a redlining Subaru WRX STi.

Is Amazon up a creek?

I'm puzzled.

Digital music is taking off. I've had an MP3 player for several years and ripped my CD collection, about 200 discs, on to my PC ages ago. I scored a 20-gig Rio Karma last summer, and put all my CDs on the bottom shelf of the computer cabinet. They are there only as a hard-copy back up in case I lose everything.

I still really like buying CDs. I like the liner notes, the pictures, the physciality of holding something in my hand, plus the peace of mind from knowing I have a hard copy, as well as the freedom to lend it to friends and basically do as I see fit with the product I purchase.

But this year could very well be the one in which I download more music than I buy. I'm talking legal, paid downloads. (For the most part, I am not a proponent of Kazaa-style file-sharing, not when it comes to commercial CDs and movies. But that's a post for another day).

Anyway, I've quite a good experience with MSN Music. Songs are 99 cents each, but if you buy a whole album, it's just $8.91. I even bought a Bing Crosby Christmas song collection with like 17 songs and it was still less than nine bucks. The files are encoded at about 160 kbps, which is higher than the 128 kbps I use for my own stuff. You have unlimted transfer rights and you can burn an unlimited number of CDs. Since my first purchase last November, I've bought six albums on MSN, and only 1 physical CD.

So here's the puzzle. Why hasn't Amazon.com launched a music download service? In the time since Apple's iTunes broke the space wide open, RealNetworks, Microsoft, and even Wal-Mart have started selling downloads. Yet Amazon, the company that basically proved e-commerce could work, the company that touted the advantages of technology over physical retail space, the company with the biggest, deepest and best product catalog, review and recommendation system, and payment processing technology has so far limited itself to offering a relative handful of free downloads, as a way to whet appetites for buying actual CDs.

They also seemed to have the advantage of being a neutral player in what is still a contentious battle over useage rights and technology. Unlike Microsoft or RealNetworks or Sony, they aren't wedded to one particular codec. Labels should be happy dealing with them because they would simply want to make the music as easy as possible for consumers to buy.

In 1999, I interviewed the then-head of Amazon's music store. Her name eldues me now, but she said at that time she expected Amazon to be selling music downloads the next year. Six years later, why have they still not taken it to the next logical step?

I dont' think it can be because they are afraid it will cannibalize actual CD sales. They sell e-books with apparently no concern that their core business of selling actual paper ones will perish. And I haven't looked at these kind of numbers in a long, long time but I'd think that the margins on downloads would be better than physical books. There'd be an initial sunk cost of adding servers and capacity to hold all the music, but once you had the first half million songs hosted you'd hit a certain scale that would make additional expansion cheaper.

Or did technology and business have nothing to do with it? Was it a rare case of Amazon dropping the ball on a major business decision? Were they frozen, unable to act, amid the RIAA-led legal wrangling over useage rights, over the possibility that if they messed up and songs that originated with Amazon ended up being spread for free all over P2P networks, that they would get in a costly and high-profile fight with the RIAA? It seems unlikely. The RIAA is always the bad guy in these stories. Amazon would have been able to position itself as a champion of consumer choice, of trying to make a viable business model.

My best guess is that, if Amazon never had anything in the works prior to iTunes, they certainly now have something pretty major in the pipeline. I wouldn't be surprised if this year Amazon busts out with what will be the deepest online music store out there. Because they are late to the game, it will have to have the best selection. It will have to offer tunes in at least two formats (MP3 and WMA), maybe more. It will probably have to be seamless plugged into the CD music store. Consumers will want the option of downloading the tracks now, or buying the CD, from the same page. I know I wouldn't want to drill down to find an artist's CD, then decide I want to download it instead and have to repeat the process in a separate page.

I just can't imagine that Amazon is going to miss this boat entirely.

Spud vs Beasties

Gamespy sez the upcoming NBA Street Vol. 3, successor to one of the most insanely fun sports titles out there, will not only have the Beastie Boys as playable characters, but also Spud Webb. How cool is that?

The little blurb that was on the Gamespy front page earlier today is gone, and I don't have the energy to go digging for it. Anyway, here's their preview of the game.

Oh, and the graphics look, like, totally rad.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

An IM conversation that is at once amusing and horrifying

This is an actual IM conversation that took place today with a good friend. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Scott says: Yo homes

Mounds says: shizzlator

Mounds says: sitting with my balls on frozen peas

Scott says: Oh dudE!!!!

Scott says: and you're not joking, are you?

Mounds says: extremely untrivial

Mounds says: nope

Scott says: i hope you're at home and not at kinkos

Mounds says: vasectomy

Mounds says: on the la-Z-boy

Scott says: are you in pain?

Mounds says: stomach hurts. They pull your nut strings, which i hated

Scott says: 'scuse me? nut strings?

Mounds says: the tubes that carry your money juice to your gajangas

Scott says: and you could feel them unraveling like a cheap sweater, right?

Mounds says: the doctor asked me if I wanted to see them, and like I fool I looked

Scott says: oh god

Mounds says: don't do that if you ahve this

Scott says: thanks doc

Mounds says: my new name is Jackson. I am a new person

Scott says: you just need a new nose and you're set

Scott says: oh man you are a brave man

Scott says: i respect a guy who can get his nuts chopped

Scott says: that takes balls, you could say

Mounds says: this guy has a website - www.drsnip.com

Scott says: fuck off that is not a real web site

Mounds says: twisted pigfucker
Mounds says: click

Mounds says: he looks like an evil bastard, no?

Scott says: he has a crazed look in his eyes

Mounds says: he should - he is wearing my balls as earrings

Scott says: but he advertises a "no scalpel technique"

Mounds says: at the end he gave me a pocket knife with his url on it

Scott says: what a sick fuck

Mounds says: so what - he got into my scrotum with s soup spoon?

Scott says: i have to ask -- how do they do it?

Mounds says: they cut a small hole in your scrotum, and then grab both of the vans (seminal tubes), cut them in half, and then cauterize them

Scott says: those first eight words are not ones i hope to ever read again

Scott says: do they at least shave you?

Mounds says: yeah

Mounds says: is that a perk?

Scott says: depends i guess

Mounds says: i always fantasized of a perky redhead shaving my balls, not dr snip

Scott says: this is great. you have a son and send me an e-mail with a half-dozen words. you get a vasectomy and turn into fucking leo tolstoy

Scott says: the good doctor doesn't have a contingent of pretty nurses to do stuff like that?

Mounds says: this is the first time I have been forced to sit in one place, and not allowed to move

Mounds says: makes me loquacious

Scott says: it seems you would have good incentive not to move.

Nice speech

Update: Got the name of the federal savings program wrong. It's the Thrift program, not the SWIFT program.

Just watched the State of the Union address. It was definitely one of the best speeches Bush has given. He was confident, smooth, authoritative and straight forward.

The highlight was the Iraq stuff near the end. The inclusion of Safia Caleb al-Suhail, the Iraqi human rights activist who sat next to Laura Bush, was a wonderful touch. A colleague saw the camera pan across her before the speech started and he said, "Woah, one of the Bush girls really plumped up!"

But seriously, I got choked up when this brave Iraqi woman stood and displayed her ink-stained finger, alternating that with the peace sign. The roaring standing ovation was awesome, too.

Best Bush lines:

"We will succeed because the Iraqi people value their own liberty as they showed the world last Sunday.

"Casting a vote is an act of civic responsibility, and for Iraqis it was an act of personal courage and they have earned the respect of us all."

I do wish -- and I incorrectly forecast this -- that Bush had also held up an inky finger. It would have been a nice show of solidarity. The only real objection I can think of is that maybe it would be inappropriate to indicate that a non-Iraqi, especially the president of the U.S., voted in the Iraq elections or something.

But Bush's speech was spot on. He vowed that "a small group of terrorists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people." He said the U.S. military will increasingly be in a supporting role as they train Iraqi police and miliary. He slapped down those calling for a firm timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq, rightly pointing out that would just advertise to the terrorists how long they need to hold out.

"We are in Iraq to achieve a result." That's exactly the right approach. Imagine if a company hired a CEO who came in and said, "I am going to increase profits by 50 percent, slash costs by 20 percent and raise our margins 5 percentage points. That, or stay in this job for 18 months, whichever comes first." Investors wouldn't really take him seriously.

The tribute to fallen soldiers was also very moving. The parents of the soldier killed in Fallujah looked very uncomfortable and embarrassed to be the focus of attention. It sounded like they got the longest and loudest applause. Bush got choked up and so did I.

Quick tour of the rest of the speech:

Keep America economic leader of the world ... restricting the spending appetite of the federal government ... halve the deficit by 2009, cut/eliminate 150 government programs... the principle is clear -- taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely or not at all

All good stuff. More of that, please. Why stop at 150 programs? Is one of them the Department of Education? No? Nuts.

protect honest business owners from junk lawsuits... economy held back by frivolous class action suits, asbestos suits... health care, community centers, medical savings accounts... reliable supplies of energy. hydrogen... four years of debate is enough. Congress needs to pass legislation that makes our country more secure and less dependent on foreign energy...

Color me skeptical on the energy front. Oil is so cheap and there's so much of it that it just doesn't make economic sense to switch to something else. Interesting that Bush didn't link any of the alternative energy stuff into the environment. In fact, there was nothing on the environment in the entire speech. Not that there should have been, but it's interesting that he didn't give it a token mention.

Federal tax code... revise code from top to bottom... pro-growth, easy to understand and fair to all... immigration system outdated. should not be content to punish hardworking people, deprive businesses of workers, cause chaos at borders...

Tax simplification is definitely good but unclear what changes Bush wants or envisions. He said they were studying the code but I doubt any plan will be as dramatic as eliminating all deductions and putting in a flat tax. Wait and see.

Social security great moral success of the 20th century... must strengthen and save social security. 55 and older, no changes in any way ... for younger workers, the system has serious problems that will grow worse with time... boos at comment that system will go bankrupt in 2042 (?)... it should not be a small matter to the United States Congress... nice list of bipartisan reform suggestions
over the years ... must not increase payroll taxes, no change for those near retirement. gradual changes ... the best way to reach that goal is for voluntary personal retirement accounts ... pass along account to children ... best of all, the money in the account is yours and the government can never take it away ... conservative mix of bonds and stock funds, no Wall Street fees, protect from market swings on eve of retirement ... cannot be taken out all at once but taken out over time ... federal employees already have Thrift saving plan. It's time to extend the same security and choice and ownership to young Americans

Strong stuff on Social Security. The president again was plain-spoken and clearly laid out the stakes and mathematics. Emphasizing the ownership aspect of the accounts, their gradual implementation, ability to be willed to children, etc., are excellent selling points. It was clever to reference the saving account system for federal employees. Basically he's telling average Americans, hey the government thinks this is a good system for its own employees, so why not for everyone? Nice touch.

Marriage ... Government is not the source of these values but government should never undermine them ... I support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage

The only part of the speech I really didn't like. Wants to prevent gay people from getting married. I thought he'd recently downplayed his support for that, so I was surprised to hear him clearly state it. The only thing I can figure is that he knows an amendment will never pass and he just gets some cred with the religious right for putting his support out there. Still wish he hadn't said it, though.

Radicalism and ideology of murder ... if people remain in despair, these areas become recruiting grounds of terror ... the only force powerful enough to stop rise of tyranny and terror ... is the force of human freedom ... ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world ... the United States has no right, no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That's the difference between us and our enemies ... cut to Afghan voter, nice applause ... we are witnessing landmark events in the advancement of liberty, in the coming years we will add to that story ... a Palestinian state is within reach and America will help them reach that goal ... Saudi Arabia, Egypt can show way towards democracy ...
Syria still allows terrorists. Demand Syria end support for terror and open the door to freedom ... Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror ... working with European allies to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program and end support for terror ... as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

Gadget list

As long as I'm doing lists today, I'd like to point out this Top 10 gadget list from CNet.

It's not necessarily a bad list, but I found it odd that they included three mobile telephones and three MP3 players. How about some variety, guys?

Here's my alternative list (in no particular order).

1. Mac mini. These are just sweet.

2. Any Rio MP3 player. I have the Rio Forge 256 and love the form factor and the features. I also have a 20G Rio Karma, which should be getting replaced soon with something a bit sexier, though I still think the functionality kicks ass over everything else, yes, even the sacred iPod.

3. The Xbox. With Xbox Live, of course, even though I haven't been able to try that out since they don't offer it in China. Grrr...

4. The PalmOne Treo 650. I'm not really into smart phones, but I think CNet has a good point with this one and it really has a lot of buzz.

5. A set of Bose sound-cancellingheadphones.

6. The new HP iPaq. Fingerprint ID! How cool is that?

7. A FragBox. Yes, this makes two computers on my list, and two items with the word "box" in their names but this is a gaming rig while the Mac is for being creative at home with photos, music and video.

8. A Linksys wireless router to hook up your Mac with your FragBox.

9. An HP Photosmart 6x4 printer. I had the first model of this line and it totally rocked. Very impressive when you take it traveling and hand out instant prints of things you just did with friends and family.

10. I'll wrap this up with a big ol' Panasonic 36" HDTV. I still think tube televisions are the way to go, quality-wise and cost-wise. See, by taking the money I would have spent on a flat-panel plasma TV, I can get a CRT TV and everything else on this list, except maybe the FragBox.