Apple make some really nice hardware and maybe the software they create for the Mac is good, but their Windows developers must be complete morons. Although I think iTunes for Windows is probably the second-worst piece of software ever to be released, I do occasionally use it when I have to transfer music to my iPod. For a while now, it had been throwing up this error message an error message about how "the registry settings used by the iTunes drivers for importing and burning CDs and DVDs are missing". Read more
There are some online games that I enjoy playing. What many of those appear to have in common nowadays is that there are profanity filters in them. Personally I think that is a monumentally stupid idea. There are two reasons for that. The first is that it is a very ineffective and hypocritical form of censorship. I've never understood why people, especially Americans, (at least in public) condemn the use of certain simple words and go positively ballistic at the sight of even mild nudity, yet live in a society that glorifies violence to the point where the "right to bear arms" is a part of the country's constitution and many people make use of that right. I can sort of understand that parents don't want their kids to be bombarded with expletives, but can those same parents honestly say that they never swear themselves? I doubt it very much. Many are indeed terrible hypocrits and say they "won't swear in front of the children". As if no child hearing a curse suddenly makes it better. The parents learnt those words, the kids will too. Filtering them in a game isn't going to prevent that. If you really think swearing is that bad, then it won't do to keep your children ignorant, but you need to set the right example for them and explain to them what it is they shouldn't be doing and why they shouldn't be doing it. Read more
I love logic puzzles. Today, I found two good ones linked on the Hacker News RSS feed. Check them out at Nick Yee's homepage. It didn't take me long to find a solution for the first one... I'm still working on the second. Read more
Electronic Arts are one of the oldest companies in the games business. Over the years they've grown into a corporate behemoth that, as a publisher, eats smaller companies for breakfast. Unfortunately, this does not appear to do the companies acquired any good. Once they've fallen prey to the monster's appetite, all creativity appears to be stamped out and they are relegated to churning out sequels for EA sports franchises with slightly updated graphics and player names for each subsequent year. If you thought that was bad, get a load of this. Read more
