PETA attempts to out-stupid Jessica Simpson

Yesterday, Jessica Simpson was photographed wearing a shirt that says 'real girls eat meat'. Now this might have been an ironic T-shirt, but I'm sure Jessica doesn't know what that means so it's most likely not.

Today, PETA responded by posting 5 Reasons Why Only Stupid Girls Brag About Eating Meat (capitalization theirs) on their blog. The list is arguably even stupider than Jessica Simpson is rumoured to be. Here are the five 'reasons', with explanations why they are wrong.

1. Meat increases the risk of breast cancer.
The article mentioned was indeed published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2007 by Taylor, Burley et al. and finds a association between eating meat and the risk of breast cancer in pre- and post-menopausal women. However, sources indicate that the effect was not significant and inconclusive.

2. Real girls don't support animal abuse.
Celebrities (obviously) do not represent the world population, so if 'huge numbers of celebtrities are ditching meat' that does not mean everyone is. The latest numbers indicate 6.7% of Americans were vegetarian in 2006. In India, over 57% of the population is vegetarian.

3. The meat industry is destroying the Earth.
The quote used here is in The Times, from the Prince of Wales and is from 2005. In the exact same article, the Prince is criticized as being hypocritical since he spends large amounts of money but speaks out for less spending. His comments are in no way connected to animal cruelty or vegetarianism. He also has a ranch with 100 chickens.

4. Meat will make you fat.
I guess I'll just eat the fries then whenever I'm at McDonalds? This is rubbish, anything taken in excess will make you fat. Including a vegetarian diet.

5. Eating meat steals food from starving kids.
So it's OK for starving kids to eat meat?

Basically, PETA blasted Jessica Simpsons for being seen wearing a T-shirt advocating meat consumption, without: asking if she agrees with it, asking if it was a joke, asking if she was not a vegetarian, asking if she wanted their advice, or even asking, I don't know, if she even eats meat that much. If this isn't the stupidest form of hypocrisy then I don't know what.

Jack Thompson tells on Take Two, emails his mom

In the most hilarious move of anti-videogame-crusader attorney Jack Thompson yet, he responded to the GTA IV 'murder simulator' by sending an email to Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's mom. The email is filled with the usual falsehoods and draconian exaggerations. Following is the email itself as well as the actual facts.

Dear Mrs. Zelnick:
Your son, as you may know (or maybe you don’t know), is Chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., whose most popular video games are the Grand Theft Auto murder simulator games banned in some countries but sold to children here.

Currently, GTA 3 and GTA: San Andreas are banned in Australia because of the Hot Coffee drama.
GTA IV is banned in the United Arab Emirates.
GTA 3, GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV all are rated M for Mature, meaning it is illegal to sell it to people under the age of 17. Note that children are generally younger than 17.

Your son last week was reported to have said the following about Grand Theft Auto IV, due to be released Tuesday, April 29:
"We’ve already received numerous [GTA IV] reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn’t write better reviews…"
Taking your son’s thought, I would encourage you either to play this game or have an adroit video gamer play it for you. Some of the latter gamers are on death row, so try to find one out in the civilian population who hasn’t killed someone yet.

Devin Moore, who was sentenced to death for killing three police officers while trying to escape custody, claimed to be influenced by GTA: Vice City. The Inquirer claims he made this up. His victim's families seem more concerned with suing Take-Two, Rock Star, Wal-Mart and Gamestop than with mourning.
Note that this is the only known case of a criminal on death row who ever blamed GTA.

What you will see in your son’s game, if this iteration of GTA is anything like its predecessors, ..

Jack Thompson apparently hasn't even seen the game.

..is incredible interactive violence aimed at police officers (whom you can shoot in the head and see the blood spray), innocent bystanders (whom you can run over with your car just for the heck of it), and of course the plentiful female prostitutes you can have sex with and then filet with a knife or stomp with your feet in order to get your money back. Experts note that the recent plethora of cop killings is caused in part by your darling son’s entrepreneurial energy. There are three policemen dead in Alabama because of Grand Theft Auto. I was on 60 Minutes about it. I hope Strauss has provided you with a flat screen tv to see the grief of the bereaved families that fills the screen.

Literature that supports the theory that violent video games leads to violent behaviour is flimsy at best. The most recent study even shows that playing violent videogames relaxes you.

Also note that GTA IV has no option to 'stomp prostitutes with your feet'.

The pornography and violence that your son trafficks in is the kind of stuff that most mothers would be ashamed to see their son putting into the hands of other mothers’ children, but, hey, your son Strauss has recently assured the world that he is "a Boy Scout, everybody knows that." I’d love to see the merit badges that Scout Troop handed out. Is there a Ted Bundy merit badge? If so, your loving son deserves one now. It should be red and green, for obvious reasons.

The 'pornography' refers to the Hot Coffee mod again, which ironically was originally only some suggestive fully-clothed grinding but modified by a gamer (!) to remove clothes on the participants. This content has been removed from GTA: San Andreas in 2005 allowing the game to keep its M rating.

The quote from Zelnick is from the Breakout Performance financial blog where it is a response to accussations that Zelnick received an high yearly bonus on his employment contract.

With Passover having just come and gone, it is appropriate to note the following from the Old Testament, Proverbs 22:6:
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids. If you trained up Strauss to do this, then shame on you.

Again, selling Mature-rated games to children is illegal. While the Take-Two website requires entering your date of birth, anything can be entered as long as the age is over 17.

The Take-Two website doesn't actually sell the game online, it only redirects to the online stores that sell it, such as Amazon. Since online stores generally use websites, it would be impossible to buy GTA IV without a credit card, which children rarely have.

The commercials for GTA IV are all suitable for minors (no adult content) and clearly mention the M for Mature rating. Note that WWE matches are usually wall-to-wall violence, unlike GTA IV.

But maybe the explanation for your son’s corporate sociopathy is to be found in Old Testament Proverb 29:15:
"The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."
Maybe you, Mrs. Zelnick, were so taken by your handsome son that you spared the rod and spoiled the child. That would explain why he has brought you, by the way he presently acts, "to shame."
There’s another mother you would do well to talk to. Mrs. Crump in Alabama had a son who was a police officer. He’s now dead because a teenaged boy unwittingly trained himself to kill him on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. She has a grief she carries every day that only a mother can know. There are other such mothers in the heartland of America whose inhabitants your son simply sees as commercial targets.

The $600 million 'GTA killer' court case by Mrs. Crump and others has been dismissed by court in 2006. Note that while Jack Thompson was the practicing attorney for this lawsuit, he withdrew from the suit long before its dismissal.

As mentioned before, playing a violent videogame has not been proven to induce violent behaviour. Also, clicking a mouse button for several hours hardly trains a gamer to break into a car, hotwire it, disarm a police officer and fire a handgun.

Note that Devin Moore was 16 years old at the time of the shootings and thus was either illegaly sold GTA by a shopkeeper, or bought the game by his parents. Either possibility would place the blame elsewhere than at Devin Moore himself.

Your son, this very moment, is doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be "a Boy Scout." More like the Hitler Youth, I would say.
Happy Mother’s day, Mrs. Zelnick, which this year is May 11, two weeks after your son unleashes porn and violence upon other mothers’ boys. I’m sure you’re very proud.

Sincerely, Jack Thompson"

Note the lack of 'attorney at law', since Jack Thompson's license to practice law was revoked in 2005.

I can't even begin to comprehend why Jack Thompson suddenly places the blame for the murder of three police officers squarely in the lap of a retired mother of a very successful businessman, as well as liking her to Adolf Hitler.

ACID, ACID2 and ACID3 test results for all popular browsers by date

Since the ACID3 test was released by the Web Standards Project on March 3, lots of companies have scrambled to update their browsers to perform better on the test. No one browser has passed the test since it was released, though there seems to be a neck-to-neck race between Safari, Firefox and Opera. All three are putting out new betas (in different paces) that score better and better.

Since this seems so much like a race, I felt like putting up an overview. I tested all three ACID tests on current and older versions of Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari (for Windows) and determined as accurate as possible when each browser passed each test for the first time. I will update the ACID3 test results when they become available.

Some data taken from Anomalous Anomaly.

ACID1 test:

Notes:

• I couldn't find when Safari first passed the ACID1 test. Windows builds only started at version 3.0, and I don't have a Mac.
• It's possible Internet Explorer passed the test with an earlier 6.0 build, but it's both very hard to find them and very hard to get them running without messing up your system.

ACID2 test:

Notes:

• Netscape never passed the ACID2 test before it was discontinued. Its final result looks like this. If that looks a lot like what the latest stable Firefox renders, remember that Netscape switched to the latest (stable) Gecko engine, also used by Firefox, before putting out the last build.
• Safari and Opera passed this test first, and it took Firefox and Internet Explorer so long to accomplish this feat, that only their recent betas pass it now. How embarrassing.

ACID3 test:

Notes:

• The red line marks the releae of the ACID3 test. To see a big picture that goes back all the way to 1997, see here. It has several peaks where browsers performed worse with new versions, and I have no idea why.
• Almost every browser picked up on the ACID3 test and updated their browsers. Only Internet Explorer didn't, and that's probably only because they just put out the first beta of IE 8 three days after ACID3 was released, along with several proud posts that it passed ACID2.
• The switch to the latest Gecko rendering engine by Netscape can be seen very nicely here, as the Netscape line merges into the Firefox line with the last Netscape version.
• Not pictured: the Firefox score drop from 59% to 52% since they released 3.0 beta 1 (on a newer rendering engine) earlier than 2.0.0.12 (with the old rendering engine).
• Opera is making a GIANT leap several weeks before ACID3 was released, which shows that they were putting a lot of effort into being compliant even before the test was released.
• Safari is putting a lot of effort into passing the ACID3 test right now. Each Webkit nightly is scoring better.

TODO: maybe I'll add the CSS3 selector test later on.

UPDATES:

• March 26: New Firefox 2.0.0.13 scores no better on ACID3. Webkit nightly r31306 goes from 95% to 96%.


• March 26 again: THE RACE HAS BEEN WON! Both the latest Webkit nightly and the current internal Opera build now pass 100% of the ACID3 test! Congratulations to both teams. Opera wins for having a 100% score just hours before Webkit did. Webkit takes the medal for having the first publicly available build that passes ACID3 - Opera promises the public build later this week.


• March 27: It seems Opera is generally credited with the first Acid3 100% pass, and that Safari's Webkit cheated by implementing only the part of the SMIL protocol that was required to pass the relevant test.


• March 28: Opera made their internal WinGogi build available (the one that scores 100% on Acid3) and I added it to the graph. It's the peak on 26 March, obviously. Most of the Acid3 changes will not be in the Kestrel engine scheduled for Opera 9.5, which explains why the latest 9.5 alpha build scores just 79%.


• April 2nd: Firefox 3.0 beta 5 scores 71% over the 68% of beta 4.


• April 17th: Firefox 2.0.0.0.14 scores 53% over the 52% of 2.0.0.13. It seems clear they are focusing more on Firefox 3 for standards compliance now.


• April 18th: Safari 3.1.1 scores 74% as opposed to the last 3.1 version. The latest Opera weekly build scores 79% like its predecessors. I've updated the Acid3 graph to show the results the latest version of each browser gives, even if this is a stable version and a better scoring beta was released earlier. If I have some time left later I'll split the lines into stable and beta.


• April 25th: Opera 9.5 beta 2 scores 79% like its predecessors.


• May 17th: Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 scores no higher than the betas: 71%.


• June 5th: Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 still only at 71%. It doesn't seem like FireFox 3 will score any higher than this.


• June 10th: Opera 9.5 RC scores 83%. Their latest weekly builds have been slowly creeping up on the Acid3 test.


• June 12th: Opera 9.5 was released today and it scores 83% on Acid3.


• June 20th: Safari 3.1.2 scores 75% over the previous version's 74%.


• July 31st: The Firefox 3.1 alpha Shiretoko scores a surprising 83%, bringing it on par with Opera.


• September 6th: Added Google Chrome to the list. It seems to update discretely, I got only 55% on the first version but reinstalling today yielded 77% (or sometimes 79%) and the build number had changed from 1583 to 1798. The Safari 4.0 beta from June 10th scores 100%!


• September 8th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 alpha 2 and Opera 9.60 beta 1 RC were both released on September 5th and both score 85%!


• October 8th: While Google Chrome is still on 79%, the latest Chromium nightly builds have updated the Webkit engine version on October 1st, and it's scoring 100% on ACID3 since build 2778! There's only one timing issue (test 26) and the image doesn't look like the reference pic completely - big red cross in top-right corner and 'linktest failed' below the score). Chromium is already at build 3001 at the time of writing, so expect the official Google Chrome builds to duplicate this soon.


• October 15th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 beta 1 is out and scores 89%, finally passing Opera for the first time since March.


• December 4th: Opera 10 alpha 1 was released today and it scores 100%, as expected. It's also MUCH quicker than the WinGogi build they put out sometime ago.


• December 8th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 beta 2 scores 93%.

How to use the Wii Guitar Hero III guitar on Guitar Hero III for the PC

Right! I'm going to explain to you how to get the Les Paul from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Nintendo Wii to work with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC. I took a lot of this from the Wiihacks post on using your Wiimote as a mouse in Windows so if something isn't clear enough, go read that first.

*UPDATE* March 6: the GlovePIE script is now DONE. I just added the correct keybinding to the + key (Backspace instead of Escape) and changed the whammy code to use the mouse for whammying. It's not as smooth as I'd like, but it's the best you can get.
*UPDATE* March 5: updated the script to be three times shorter, and added support for Star Power activation by tilting the guitar. The Wiimote will also rumble for a second when you do this, somewhat like it does in GH3 for the Wii. Yay!

Why?

Because GH3 for the PC has better graphics and STEREO SOUND, and I wanted to see if it could be done. These guys got most of it working and I've had some tips from them. You've all seen the videos of people using the Wiimote as a mouse, and some of you probably have seen some of Johnny Chung Lee's videos where he uses the Wiimote as cheap implementations of head tracking solutions and multi-touch whiteboard screens.
I got the whole thing working in about an hour, on Windows XP. The GlovePIE script (which is completely my own) took about three days work off and on.

What do I need?

You're going to need the following things:

• A Nintendo Wii controller and a Wii Les Paul guitar controller, obviously.


• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC


• A bluetooth adapter or USB dongle - If your computer doesn't already have one (look in the Device Manager to check this), you can get a cheap one that plugs into your USB port from eBay. I got one for $1 and it works fine.


• BlueTooth drivers - If your computer doesn't have them already (Windows Vista should) and the above bluetooth adapter/dongle didn't have a driver CD included, get the free BlueSoleil drivers.


• GlovePIE 0.30 or newer - this interprets the signals from the Wiimote and can map them to key presses. Version 0.30 added support for the Wii guitar.


• A bit of persistence to get the GlovePIE script to work right :-)

Connect the Wiimote to your PC via Bluetooth

This should be the easiest part. Plug the Bluetooth dongle in if you have one, then install the BlueSoleil drivers. The Microsoft Bluetooth stack will NOT work, unless have a Bluetooth device that is in the list of compatible devices on the WiiBrew wiki.

Once the Bluetooth part is setup, put the Wiimote in discovery mode by pressing 1+2, then let your Bluetooth device on the PC discover it. It should find something like Nintendo RVL-CNT-01, which offers a Human Interface Device (HDI) service. If the Wiimote LEDs stop flashing, press them again until your PC finds the Wiimote and the service. When that's done, connect to the HID service.

Setup GlovePIE to use the Wiimote

Now that the Wiimote is connected to your PC, open up GlovePIE. Go to File > Open and open the script called TestWiimote.PIE in the OldScripts folder. Now click RUN and wave around your Wiimote. There should be numbers changing in the debug window in response to your waving. If they don't change, either your Wiimote is not connected properly, or your Bluetooth stack is incompatible with the Wiimote.

If you got GlovePIE working, you can try this mouse script from the Wii Hacks blog and fiddle around with it. Tilting your Wiimote should control the mouse cursor, and it should make the Wiimote vibrate when you hit the screen. A and B control the mouse buttons.

Setup GlovePIE to use the Wii guitar controller

Now for the hard part. You'll need a custom script to interpret the signals from the Wii guitar and map them to keys on your keyboard. The script I wrote to do this is below, you can copy and paste it into GlovePIE (don't forget to save it) and change it to your liking.

Key.Ctrl = False
Key.LeftShift = False
Key.LeftAlt = False
Key.RightAlt = False

debug = 'whammy=' + wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar + ', pitch=' + RemoveUnits(Wiimote.Pitch)

//change these to your liking (use debug info)
var.whammythreshold = 0.55
var.starpowerangle = 50

//bind frets to V-C-X-Z etc
Keyboard.V = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret1
Keyboard.C = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret2
Keyboard.X = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret3
Keyboard.Z = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret4
Keyboard.A = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret5
//make the 4 wiimote leds light up with the first 4 frets
Wiimote.Led1 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret1
Wiimote.Led2 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret2
Wiimote.Led3 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret3
Wiimote.Led4 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret4
//other mappings
Keyboard.Space = Wiimote.Guitar.Minus
Keyboard.W = Wiimote.Guitar.StrumDown
Keyboard.E = Wiimote.Guitar.StrumUp
Keyboard.Backspace = Wiimote.Guitar.Plus

//make whammy when whammy is pushed
If Wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar > var.whammythreshold
   Mouse.x = Wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar
EndIf
//push star power button when guitar is tilted
If RemoveUnits(Wiimote.Pitch) > var.starpowerangle
   Key.Space = True
   Wiimote.Rumble = True
   Wait 1000 ms
   Key.Space = False
   Wiimote.Rumble = False
EndIf

A few things to note on this script:

It maps most of the Wii guitar controls to the default mappings of GH3 for the PC. E.g. the frets G-R-Y-B-O are mapped to V, C, X, Z and A. Look around in the script, it's really easy to do.

To configure the whammy, run the script and look at the debug value for the whammy bar. My guitar gave a value of 0.55 for the whammy bar in rest, so you'll only want GlovePIE to send it to GH3 when a value greater than 0.55 is registered (or it'll be constantly whammying). Change the line 'var.whammythreshold = ...' so that it has the value there that your whammy bar sends while in rest.

If you tilt the guitar higher than 50 degrees, Star Power is activated. If you like it better when it's at 30 degrees, or 90 degrees, change the var.starpowerangle value. Use the debug value to find your best angle.

Whichever mappings you use in the script doesn't really matter, as long as you configure GH3 for the PC to use the same mappings. So if you have the script setup to send 'Q' when you press the orange fret, setup GH3 for PC so that the 'Q' presses the orange fret.

Other stuff you can do

Besides accomplishing this great feat, you can:

• Plug your bigass flatscreen into the PC, set it as the primary screen and rock out in an even higher resolution!


• Add new songs to GH3! This is possible in the PC version only (at least with minimal effort). See this thread on the ScoreHero forums. I've already added a few songs, and it turns out to work best when you have FretsOnFire songs to be imported - those already have separate channels for song/rhythm/guitar sounds, though it is also possible with normal mp3 files.

That's it!

Using this setup, I got my Wii guitar working great with GH3 for the PC. You might not be able to get the same scores since the Bluetooth connection sometimes seems to drop things or lag a bit, but it's great for getting that extra graphics quality boost that you won't get on the Wii. :-) Have fun!

MSIE is extremely dumb

While finishing up my personal homepage at www.merijnbellekom.nl with a fancy resumé, I noticed that, of all browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn't understand a self-closing Javascript tag!

HOW

HARD

CAN IT BE

Workaround: don't use self-closing script tags. Sigh.

Grand Theft Auto can be your reality too

Wow, I just know Jack Thompson would have had a lawyergasm over this: Man thinks he's living inside Grand Theft Auto.

A young man was admitted from prison to a psychiatric facility after reports that he had been acting in a bizarre manner. He had been arrested for stealing motor vehicles and assaults with weapons. At interview he was found to be experiencing the delusion that he was a player inside a computer game (adult-certificate game, widely available) in which points are scored for stealing cars, killing assailants and avoiding police vehicles. Psychotic symptoms had emerged slowly over two years.

Even though Jack Thompson is no longer allowed to practice law, you just know people will scream bloody murder over this and claiming that it proves the link between violent video games and violent behaviour.
Even though the aforementioned young man has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Paris Hilton in jail roundup

Since every damn celebrity website has been posting about this non-stop, and even FOX and CNN have bene broadcasting several hours of this stuff, I'd figure I'd jump on the bandwagon and post about the topic you all seem to love (but mostly hate):

Paris Hilton going to jail.

The following is a timeline of what happened during this whole ordeal. I'll try to be as complete and impartial as possible.

September 7th, 2006: Paris Hilton is arrested by the LAPD for DUI. The breath test showed 0.08 alcohol percentage, which is the minimum DUI level in California.

January 22th, 2007: Paris Hilton is sentenced to a 36 month probation for reckless driving. She loses her driving license and has to attend alcohol education, and pay fines totaling $1,450.

March, 2007: Paris Hilton's driving license is reinstated after a five-month ban. NOTE: this news is doubtful.

February 28th, 2007: Paris Hilton is arrested for misdemeanor driving with a suspended license, violating her probation. She was driving without her headlights on at night.

May 4th, 2007: Paris is sentenced to 45 days in county jail. She claimed to be unaware if her license was suspended, even though papers stating this were present in her car when she was arrested.

May 8th, 2007: It's probable the sentence will be reduced to 23 days for good behaviour, and possible it will be reduced even further due to cell shortage.

May 9th, 2007: Paris Hilton is spotted driving, four days after being sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating a driving ban.

May 10th, 2007: Two petitions appear, Free Paris Hilton and Jail Paris Hilton. 19,881 people have signed the petion to free Paris Hilton, 40,134 people signed the one to jail her.
At time of writing this (june 10th), the number are 31,966 signatures to free Paris, 89,962 signatures to jail her. None of the signatures on the 'Free Paris Hilton' petition list a name or comment, whereas almost all signatures on the 'Jail Paris Hilton' do.

May 17th, 2007: Paris will serve her time in jail in a 'special needs housing unit' reserved for high-profile inmates. She will be allowed outside one hour daily.

May 22nd, 2007: Paris Hilton is spotted carrying around a Bible.

June 1st, 2007: Three days before her sentence will begin, it becomes known that Paris has ordered a make-up team to meet her next monday to make her look her best when she checks into jail.

June 3rd, 2007: At the MTV movie awards, comedienne Sarah Silverman openly mocks Paris Hilton, saying 'the prison guards will replace the bars with penises to make her feel more comfortable'. Paris wasn't amused.

June 4th, 2007: Paris Hilton checks into L.A. county jail 'Twin Towers' to start sitting out her 45-day sentence. She is quoted as saying 'This is an important point in my life and I need to take responsibility for my actions. [..] Although I am scared, I am ready to begin my jail sentence'.

June 7th, 2007: After 72 hours, Paris Hilton is released from jail due to 'medical reasons'. She has been fitted with an ankle bracelet and will serve the remaining 40 days in house arrest, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. spokesperson Steve Whitmore.
Later that day, law enforcement sources state that the 'medical condition' is purely psychological and that Paris Hilton was on a verge of a nervous breakdown. Sheriff Lee Baca gave the final approval for springing Paris out of jail.
It's rumoured that a van with party supplies was sighted at the Hilton mansion just after Paris got home. [source needed]

June 8th, 2007: Judge Michael Sauer orders Paris Hilton back to jail after it became apparent that Sheriff Lee Baca did not even have the authority to release her from jail. The judge even specifically ruled that Paris was not allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail.
Paris was initially not present during the ruling, and wanted to attend by phone, but was picked up by the LAPD in handcuffs after this was ordered by judge Michael Sauer.
Paris Hilton was in hysterics after the ruling, shouting 'It's not right!' and literally crying for her mother who was present during the court.
Lastly, a dubious source reported that Paris was initially released from prison because she had a stress-induced herpes outbreak that had 'spread to her anus and had taken on abcess-like features that required more serious medical attention'.

Finally, because it is easily the most awesome thing that came out of this whole ordeal, here is the picture that was snapped after Paris was handcuffed, being excorted back to the courtroom where she heard she had to go back to jail.



And now, I FINALLY hope to hear nothing more from this parisite for the next three weeks. For crying out loud, these last few days she's had more publicity on high-profile news stations than the September 11th attacks did in 2001.

---

UPDATE: June 10th, 2007: Paris didn't eat or drink in the past three days, afraid of going to the bathroom - a prison guard may take pictures/videos and put them on the internet.

LAST UPDATE: June 26th, 2007: Paris was released from prison and has shown what was most likely her first genuine smile ever:

StarForce and Trackmania Nations

If you play Trackmania Nations, this may be relevant to you. If not, you probably won't care.

Trackmania Nations ESCW is a free racing game that is part of games of the yearly Electronic Sports World Cup (ESCW). It's lots of fun to play on the online servers, and it's free. If you have ever played Stunts, you will love Trackmania.

Trackmania Nations installs the very controversial StarForce copy protection system. The popular BoingBoing blog has had a lot of articles about this thing, and rightfully so. The above Wikipedia article as well as this BoingBoing article mentions that the Starforce copy protection software degraded IDE transfer speeds to the point where it physically breaks CD/DVD drives.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because today I wanted to play some Trackmania and there was an update available. Specifically, an update that upgraded Trackmania from version 1.7.8 to 1.7.9. After I installed it, when I wanted to re-benchmark my system to configure the graphics settings, I saw this pop up:



Some Googling showed that this was, in fact, the Starforce protection system. While I was aware that older versions of Trackmania Nations had the Starforce protection software bundled but only actually installed it when it was already on your system, this update makes the Starforce drivers MANDATORY. It installs them without asking or informing you, silently. Things like this REALLY tick me off.
A bit of uninstalling/reinstalling showed me that all updates for Trackmania Nations trigger or require the Starforce install. Only the original version (1.7.5) does not come with Starforce, and attempting to play online with this version will get you disconnected from the server with a message telling you to upgrade.

Recap:

• Trackmania Nations is a free game
  
• Trackmania Nations has copy protection software installed called Starforce
  
• Starforce installs itself at ring 0 in the Windows architecture, the same level used by antivirus software, firewalls and several other copy-protection systems.
  
• Up to Trackmania Nations 1.7.6, Starforce was bundled with the installer but not actually installed. Unless you already had it on your system.
  
• Starting with Trackmania 1.7.9, Starforce is always installed.
  
• Starforce is not mentioned in the Trackmania Nations EULA
  
• Starforce is not mentioned in the installer
  
• Starforce installation is not visible
  
• Starforce cannot be uninstalled from the Add/Remove Software applet
  
• Starforce can physically break CD/DVD drives
  
• The people who work for Starforce are abusive assholes [1] [2]
  

How do you know if you have Starforce on your system? Easy. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager. In the Device Manager, select View > Show hidden devices from the menu. Scroll down to Non-Plug and Play devices and look for the three Starforce items.



A Starforce uninstaller can be found here:
http://www.onlinesecurity-on.com/protect.phtml?c=55

Why does a free game even have copy-protection software bundled? There are a few other versions of Trackmania that are not free (the original, 'Sunrise', and 'United') so I understand if that needs some kind of copy protection. But the free version? Well, it seems this is to prevent people from cheating at the ESCW tournaments. Which obviously take place in controlled environments where candidates are immediately disqualified for cheating. Huh?
This is all very disappointing. I have had a lot of fun with Trackmania, but I have now uninstalled and deleted it because of this Starforce mess. It was fun while it lasted.




UPDATE: July 2nd - It seems the StarForce drivers were removed from Trackmania: United. This makes me very happy.

Best programming language ever: LOLcode

An exciting new programming language has become available:
lolcode.com.

It is obvious from the examples that this is the best language ever:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
   UP VAR!!1
   VISIBLE VAR
   IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

I'd love to use this at work but I'd probably be fired for rolling out of my chair every five minutes, laughing at my own code.

How to be a pirate

Today BoingBoing linked me to an excellent post on a topic that must be of interest to nearly everyone:

The Essential Guide to Piracy.

Yarrrrr.

Creationists are really, really, really fucking stupid

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The most retarded creationist argument against evolution ever!

Note: this is not an April Fools' joke. It was published March 30, 2007.

Wench, fetch me my cape!

It takes style to ridicule bloggers like Randall Munroe did about a week ago on his XKCD comic.

It takes even more guts to take him up on his ridicule.

Well played, Cory Doctorow.

Converted Blag to GBlag

I just caved and converted my Blogger blog to the new Google format/layout/whatever, and as a result, was forced removed the 'valid xhtml 1.0' banner since the website isn't even REMOTELY valid anymore. Thanks a lot, Google.

[edit]
After some testing with the W3C Validator and different doctype declarations, I found that the ~800 validation errors are nearly ALL caused by Blogger not escaping its URLs properly (e.g. page.g?arg1=blah&arg2=blah), as well as using Javascript to write HTML tags to each page. Until Google fixes these two problems, it is impossible to get your blog to validate since no doctype declaration allows for unescaped URLs. <:-[

Papa's got a brand new Wiiiii

Oh man, I'm gonna be so popular.



Note to other people in NL: Wii's are not yet sold out in Germany! :D

Short & Sweet

Short post:

One: Jack Thompson may not be a lawyer for very long anymore. Long blog post on GamePolitics. Jack faces five counts of professional misconduct, three of which are related to his ongoing campaign against violent video games. Thompson faces the possibility of disciplinary action up to and including disbarment.

I'm surprised it took so long before court did something about this ass-clown. It was fun laughing at him while it lasted, though.


Two: Best Penny-Arcade comic in a while! Federal Bureau of Taking All Your Shit

Complete Idiot's Guide to WAMP

So, you got it in your head for some reason that you want to run a webserver on your Windows machine? With PHP, MySQL and all that fancy jazz? Well so did I, so I wrote this little guide after mucking about for two days, following various guides that didn't work, were incomplete, incorrect or outdated.

If you're like me, you have been using one of the preconfigured packages, like EasyPHP or XAMPP. The problem is, after using that for about a year, new versions of PHP, Apache and MySQL popped up left and right. And new versions of those handy packages don't come out overnight. Lucky for you, it's possible to download the components separately, mash it all together and have it come out a working WAMP server!

The following howto is a guide helping you on your way with setting up Apache 2.2, PHP 5 and MySQL 5.0 on a Windows XP machine. Windows 2000 or newer works as well, Windows 98/ME will NOT (stick with Apache 1.3 for those). I tried to make it as detailed as possible without including screenshots of each step in the install process and adding 'click Next on this screen'.

Get the software

First, you'll need to download everything so you can install everything in one big swoop.

• Apache 2.2 - the actual webserver. Select a mirror, then click the link for Win32 Binary (MSI Installer).
  
• PHP 5 - the scripting language that will be the middle man between Apache and the MySQL database. Click the link for PHP 5.2.0 zip package (the installer does not have all extensions).
  
• MySQL 5 - the database software. Click on 'MySQL Community Server', then click 'Select a mirror' for Windows (x86) ZIP/Setup.EXE. Skip past the form and click one of the HTTP links for a mirror close to your location.
  
• phpMyAdmin - a PHP 'program' that allows you to configure MySQL. You could use the commandline programs that come with MySQL, but this is way easier. Click the link for english.zip.
  

IMPORTANT: If you plan on doing ANY kindof IP-based filtering in Apache, or use PHP for any kind of IP-based verification (with $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']), do NOT get Apache v2.2.4!! There is a bug in this Apache version together with PHP 5 that makes it return 0.0.0.0 instead of the correct IP. This bug also affects any kind of IP address filtering with allow/deny in httpd.conf/.htaccess. Get Apache v2.2.3 instead, it works fine and does not have this bug.

Install everything

This is dead easy. Follow my lead.

Base directory: to keep things together, you might want to create a central folder where you're going to put everything. Preferably without spaces in the name. I chose to make C:\WAMP. If you prefer something else, substitute your path wherever it says C:\WAMP in the below steps.

Apache: Open the MSI installer file and click through the screens. Accept all the default settings until you reach the Destination Folder, where you will change it to C:\WAMP\Apache. If all goes well, you should be seeing a little Apache feather with a green icon in the system tray:


This is the Apache Service Monitor, which keeps an eye on the Apache process itself. It's handy for controlling Apache, but if you like, you can shut down the monitor without closing Apache itself.
Now go to http://localhost. If you get the message below, you did everything right.



PHP: Open the PHP install zip and extract everything to C:\WAMP\PHP. Make sure all the subdirectories are created.



MySQL: Open the MySQL install zip and double-click the Setup.exe file inside to start it. Pick the Custom install, then change the install path to C:\WAMP\MySQL. Let it install MySQL, skip the 'MySQL.com Sign-Up' and continue to configuring the MySQL server.
At the screen for 'default character set', select your best option.
At the screen for 'set security options', enter a root password.
Everywhere else, accept the default setting. Click Execute at the end to configure the MySQL server and you're done!

phpMyAdmin: Open the phpMyAdmin install zip and extract everything to C:\WAMP\Apache\htdocs. Make sure all the subdirectories are created. Open the install folder and rename the long-ass phpMyAdmin-2.x.x-english directory to pma.



You now have four separate pieces of software installed! Next up: tieing everything together into a neat WAMP package.

Configuring

If you did everything correctly, Apache is already up and running. Now all we need to do is:

1. Make Apache understand PHP
   
2. Make PHP understand MySQL
   
3. Make Apache understand MSQL
   
4. Configure phpMyAdmin
   

Sounds easy? Well it's not really all that easy, but that's what this guide is for.

Step 1:

Find the file C:\WAMP\Apache\conf\httpd.conf and open it in Notepad (or whatever you prefer).

Find the section with all the LoadModule lines, and add this one to the bottom:
LoadModule php5_module "c:/WAMP/php/php5apache2_2.dll" (note: use forward slashes)
This makes Apache load the PHP module.

Next, find the line that starts with DirectoryIndex. Change it so it reads:
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
This makes Apache understand index.php (default) files.

Now find the section with the AddType lines. Add these two:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml .inc .php3
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
This makes Apache know what to do with the .php filetype.

Save the file and close it.
Next, go back to your C:\WAMP\PHP directory and do this:

• Copy the php5ts.dll file to C:\WAMP\Apache\bin.
  
• Copy the php.ini-recommended file to C:\WAMP\Apache.
  
• Rename the file to php.ini.

Open the php.ini file in Notepad, and change this line:
short_open_tag = Off
to:
short_open_tag = On
This allows for writing php using the short <? .. ?> tags.

While you're at it, change this line:
;session.save_path = "/tmp"
to:
session.save_path = "c:\windows\temp" (or wherever your temp folder is)
This lets PHP know where to store sessions.

Double-click the Apache icon in the system tray and click Restart to make Apache read the new configuration. Apache is now configured to understand PHP!

To test this, create C:\WAMP\Apache\htdocs\index.php. Then open it in Notepad and type <?phpinfo()?>. Save the file and close it.
Go back to http://localhost and refresh. If you see a boatload of PHP information, you did it!

Step 2:

Now the next part is adding MySQL support to PHP.

Find the file C:\WAMP\Apache\php.ini and open it. Find the line:
extension_dir = "./"
and change it to:
extension_dir = "C:\WAMP\PHP\ext"
This lets Apache know where to find the MySQL extension for PHP.

Find the line:
;extension=php_mbstring.dll
and change it to:
extension=php_mbstring.dll
This loads the multi-byte string extension so phpMyAdmin can handle strings correctly.

Find the line:
;extension=php_mysql.dll
and change it to:
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll
This lets Apache load the two MySQL extensions from the PHP extension directory.

Save the file and close it. PHP is now configured to use MySQL!

Step 3:

All you need to do now is make Apache load MySQL. Easy enough!
Find the file:
C:\WAMP\MySQL\bin\libmySQL.dll
Copy it to:
C:\WAMP\Apache\bin\libmySQL.dll
This makes Apache load the MySQL library.

Go back to the Apache Service monitor again (double-click the icon in the system tray) and restart Apache once more to load all the new settings and libraries.

Step 4:

Now go to http://localhost/pma to load phpMyAdmin.
Since you haven't configured it yet, it can't access the MySQL database.



To do this:

• Go to the C:\WAMP\Apache\htdocs\pma directory.
  
• Rename the config.sample.inc.php file to config.inc.php.
  
• Open the file in Notepad and find this line:
  $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
  
• Change it to:
  $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
  
• Below it, add this line:
  $cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
  
• Below that, add this line:
  $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'your MySQL root password';
  
• Find the line with controluser and delete the part pmauser between the quotes.
  
• Find the line with controlpass and delete the part pmapass between the quotes.
  
• Save the file and close it.
  

If you reload http://localhost/pma now, it should give you the main screen for phpMyAdmin.



You're done! Everything is setup now. Your WAMP server is finished!

---

Problems?

• If you can't get to http://localhost, Apache isn't running. Go to Start > Run > services.msc, find Apache2 in the list and start it. If it's not in the list, reinstall Apache.
  
• If Apache doesn't start, there is an error in the httpd.conf configuration file.
  
• If no one can get to your webserver, make sure your firewall and/or router allows it.
  
• Make sure you did everything correctly!

This is a Belgian virus. Please forward it to everyone and then delete all your files.

Today I received my first spam message to my private university email account. I haven't read spam messages in a long time, but this one caught my eye for two reasons. The full body of the spam was:

Good day,

Viazzgra $1, 80
Ciazzlis $3, 00
Levizztra $3, 35

http://www.printeryml.*com ( Important ! Remove "*" )

--
Dobby stood for a moment, quivering all over, horror-struck by his own daring then he rushed over to the nearest table and began banging his head on it very hard, squealing, Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!

First off, that URL is not even remotely valid. It includes an asterisk, and the message instructs the user to remove the asterisk before going to the address. That's INSANELY STUPID. A while back there was an email virus that evaded email scanners that blocked suspicious .zip files by sending .rar files with the payload. In a password-protected .rar file. So the spam message instructs the spammee with detailed instructions to save the file to disk, open it in WinRAR (which is not as commonly used as WinZip), extract the file, enter the password, find the extracted file, and then open it to launch the virus. Erm, I mean, porn movie. Whatever. Understandably, the virus was not very widespread.

Secondly, does anyone recognize the text at the bottom, cleverly intended to fool spamfilters into thinking it's not spam since it has full sentences?

Yes.

It's from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I gotta say, spam is getting more Belgian every day.

Mr. Kers, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS DAS PARFUM

Just last night, I went to see the movie adaptation of Patrick Süskinds Das Parfum, named Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Having read the book roughly ten years ago, I found that the movie was very true to the book. However, if you haven't read the book, some parts of the movie might not make much sense to you. I won't go into any of the details here (so no spoilers) but the gist of the story is about a boy named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who possesses an extraordinary sense of smell. After he discovers he has no smell of his own, he endeavors to create one, being the world's most perfect perfume. Throughout the book, he becomes more and more disgusted with mankind, isolating himself for years in a deserted cave before re-entering the world and learn about the technique that will enable him to create his perfect perfume.

I read this book when I was in highschool when I was about 16, and it impressed me in the same way that Spider-Man impresses me: he can do something that no one else can (except Tobey Maguire uses his skills for good). The story goes through different stages, and this makes for a very enthralling movie. Even moreso than the book.
However, when it was time for my book exams, surprise surprise, my German teacher did not just touch upon this book, he dived into it. And took me with him. Apparently, there was a deeper meaning to the story that I had not understood. That I had completely missed, even. Instead of focusing on the several books of Kafka (and reviews, and documentaries) that I had read like I expected, he completely teared me apart of some bullshit allegory that was hidden in the Perfume book. Supposedly the entire thing was somehow an allegory for a teen growing up in puberty, going through several stages of mental maturity, blah blah blah. I failed the book exam very, very thoroughly. (On the other hand, I completely aced the written national exams, balancing my grade out nicely.)

So as you can expect, I was very anxious to see if anyone else could see the hidden meaning of the story after it was made into a movie. Surely, the movie critics know a lot about the stories movies tell, and their deeper meaning? Those guys, who have seen hundreds of movies, will see the hidden meaning of Perfume within a minute? Right??

No.

I have looked at every movie critic's review I could find. I have read all of them very thoroughly, skipping over the parts that praise Tom Tykwer for making a great costume drama with the budget he had, praising the beautiful close-ups of the murdered girls, and the performance of the lead characters, Ben Whiskaw and Alan Rickman. I even read the Wikipedia pages about the book and the movie, and the story's deeper meaning is mentioned NOWHERE. It's not there. I really doubt all the movie critics, as well as myself, can be wrong. It's not there.

So it is with absolute great pleasure that I can finally say, after ten years, to my old German teacher:

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS DAS PARFUM.
THERE IS NO HIDDEN MEANING IN THE BOOK.
STOP ASKING YOUR STUDENTS ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT IS BULLSHIT.
FUCK. YOU.

Ballmer: Linux is infringing on Microsoft's IP

Steve Ballmer, the man up top at Microsoft whom you all know (monkeyboy dance, developers, Google chair toss), says that Linux users infringe upon Microsoft's intellectual property and that the only Linux distribution that is legal in his eyes is SUSE Linux, owned by Novell, which has payed $40 million to Microsoft, in return for Microsoft's promise not to sue SUSE or Novell later on for patent infringement. Actually, Novell paid this only after Microsoft gave Novell $440 million for service coupons. Ballmer says Microsoft is willing to make the same $40 million deal with other Linux distributions.

What the hell? IP infringement? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just because the graphical interface of Linux also has Windows, buttons and a taskbar does not mean it's stolen from Microsoft. Unix and even Xerox have had this for decades. Microsoft in no way holds the patent to a WIMP interface. If that is even the part(s) of Linux that Ballmer is talking about. It's nowhere to be found what parts actually constitute the patent infringements.

Not surprisingly, the Linux community has responded furiously.
RedHat asked Ballmer to reveal what parts of Linux are infringing, so that they may remove or workaround the patent infringement.

The Samba group asked Novell to reconsider and undo the settlement, citing obligations to the open source community. Samba also mentioned that this deal is a GPL violation.

Novell says that the $40 million deal has nothing to do with settlements for patent infringements.

Linux users themselves are just laughing about this.

This could be fun. I'd like to hear Ballmer get all worked up and blurt out that Linux is illegal, except for the ones that paid him off. This is like the SCO lawsuits all over again.

I feel old

I just read an article about FireFox 3.0 on Ars Technica that has the following quote:

"One interesting request appears near the end of the list: the wish for Firefox to be the "fastest browser on the market," even in low-memory configurations such as PCs with only 256 MB of RAM."

For me, a low-memory system has about 32 MB of RAM. I feel old.