Online ‘personality tests’ are a dime a dozen. However, combine the need for self-validation, the ability to waste time, and Legos (the Geek childhood version of crack) and you’ve successfully link-baited me. OkCupid asks: Which Lego MiniFig are You?
As you may have heard by now an otherwise lackluster interview with Bill Gates was made notable when he hightailed it out of the Daily show set as fast as possible. John Stewart recaps the event:
Hat tip: Gizmodo
In honor of Vista’s launch today Geeks are Sexy has gathered a number of great ‘Get a Mac’ spoofs. My favorite? Work. (Wait for the last line).
You can see the rest on the Geeks are Sexy site.
As announced on several different sites eBay is removing all sales that have to do with virtual reality worlds. How big is the digital loot business? Apparently several hundred million dollars, according to Daniel Terdiman’s CNet story. eBay is willing to shun all the fanboys selling imaginary leather braziers because “we want people to have good user experiences on the site.”
Oddly missing from eBay’s ban is the virtual world of Second Life. There are vast differences in the Second Life license agreement and those found in other online games (of which World of Warcraft is the largest). In Second Life the ‘players’ own their creations while all World of Warcraft time sinks remain the sole possession of Blizzard, the parent company. However, terms of use agreements were not cited as the reason eBay made its decision; protecting itself from having to deal with online fraud was. Nothing in or out of Second Life would protect users more than its banned virtual game world counterparts.
Kotaku posits that eBay may not believe Second Life to be a game. That statement, however, does not address how Second Life auctions ‘protect users’.
Perhaps its more about ‘protecting investments’ than ‘protecting users’. As Clickable Culture’s Tony Walsh points out it could very well be because eBay has a financial stake in Second Life’s success. From Tony:
…two eBay board members are also indirect investors in Linden Lab, the virtual world’s maker and maintainer. Benchmark Capital lead $8M in financing of Linden Lab in 2004, with the participation of Omidyar Network and others. eBay board member Robert Kagle is a member of Benchmark Capital. Pierre Omidyar is eBay’s founder, a current eBay board member, and leads Omidyar Network.
Last week several geek-worthy causes floated across our desk. The first, via Boing Boing, is ReasonableAgreement.org. Despite having an unreasonably long name, ReasonableAgreement (hereafter referred to as R.A.) nobly highlights the insanity that End User License Agreements (hereafter referred to as EULA’s) have become. From the site:
As you move through space, as you look at the Web, when you buy things, when you travel, it’s increasingly the case that you end up making “agreements” to give up your rights. For example, by installing software, you might give up the right to sue the company that made it if it didn’t work. Or by subscribing to an online music service, you might give up your right to loan the songs you buy to a friend. When you install a game like World of Warcraft, you agree to install spyware on your computer. When you sign your credit-card slip at Best Buy or Fry’s, you waive all kinds of rights you get under consumer protection law.
The propoganda spout also has T-shirts; a part of every sale goes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. More on the ReasonableAgreement.org website.
The second organization is Entertainment Consumers Association (or ECA) which has been running ads in online publications like the Escapist for Right2Game.org. The ads carry the eye popping line:
Politicians consider video games to be as dangerous as guns and narcotics. And they’re spending $90 million to prove it.
While I support the intent of the site (Utah’s saner politicians - not an oxymoron - had to reject a ‘Games as Porn’ bill for the third time this week despite sponsors vowing to continue) I am cautious of its backing. Unlike a grassroots movement (like R.A.) the ECA has Chase Banks and Hyatt Hotels on their sponsors page. I can’t even fathom a reason - altruistic, nefarious, or otherwise - why those places would give two shakes of a money purse. Can you?
This just in from the department of external flogging affairs: only 3 days left for free shipping. That’s right: from now till February all orders over $15 to the US and Canada don’t have to pay a single cent toward physical transport. Just make sure you use the code FREESHIPPING07 on checkout.
In February we’re giving the store a much needed enema; make sure you get you pick up that hat or shirt that you had your eye on because it may not make it into our spring lineup.
You can get started with the Militant Geek T-Shirt Shop.
Since we’ve already gone and soiled whatever clean streak of “high-brow” humor we had with a Google Toilet Humor Piece I don’t feel nearly as sheepish posting this monstrosity:
Hat Tip: Fred, the VC in New York
We’ve spent quite a bit of time since CES talking about the rabid nature of Apple’s zealots. Of course, they’re aren’t alone. Gaming has more than its fair share of ideological rallying cries. Of course, when the product is the Nintendo Wii, who can blame them?
I give the following video 3 stars of excellence for the well placed Mario sound clips, but a demotion for the synchronized dancing. Have the boy bands of yore taught us nothing?
Just when you thought we were done with the Apple iPhone videos another comes our way via GeekSugar. Watch as the cast faithfully recreates Apple-fanboy-dom in all its cultish zeal:
Despite recent miscues like allowing Chinese censorship and paying motion picture studios hush money Google remains an Internet darling. What is the source of this goodwill? From what fount doth Google’s mead flow? Ironically enough, Google may just continue its rocket-ride to unrealistically high expectations because of what it does in the bathroom.
On the Google Code blog the latest entry touts Google’s program for motivating employees. The crux? Google reminds employees how to be #1 while they’re taking a #2. From the post:
Today we’re unveiling the public release of “Testing on the Toilet”: one of Google’s little secrets that has helped us inspire our developers to write well-tested code. We regularly write flyers about everything from dependency injection to code coverage, and then plaster the bathrooms all over Google with each episode, almost 500 stalls worldwide.
We’ve decided to share this secret weapon with the rest of the world to spread our passion to other developers, and to provide a fun and easy way to educate yourself (and the rest of your company) about these important tricks and techniques.
In other words, Google has taken one of the last bastions of personal solitude inside increasingly overbearing corporate structures and turned it into work time. What’s next? Harnessing developer’s body heat while they sleep to power the Googleplex?
