I was reading the Denver Post the other day and was alerted to an interesting Supreme Court case. It deals with eminent domain, something that has come under increasing controversy in the last thirty years.

"Eminent domain" is the right of a state or local government (or any government, really) to take private land for public use. The right of eminent domain in the United States comes from the Fifth Amendment, which states (among other things), "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The Supreme Court case that will be argued on Feb. 22 is called Kelo v. City of New London (04-108). (Link goes to Connecticut Supreme Court opinion.) New London is a city in Connecticut which seized private land with the purpose of redeveloping it into commercial and residential space which would, ostensibly, create higher tax revenues over the years. These increased tax revenues are the "public use" to which the land is being put.

Property owners whose property was to be seized sued the state on the grounds that the "furtherance of a significant economic development plan" does not constitute a "public use" of the land. The petitioners, Kelo et al., objected to the New London Development Corporation's argument that "economic development constitutes a valid public use under the takings clauses of the state and federal constitutions, and that these takings will sufficiently benefit the public and bear reasonable assurances of future public use." The key issue here is whether or not it can be assured that destroying existing property and giving it to someone else will assure increased tax revenues. Here in Mentor, the city agreed to destroy several historic buildings to make way for a Walgreen's drug store. The Walgreen's closed a year later, leaving an empty building and a bunch of historic buildings that were ultimately destroyed without purpose.

In the last thirty years, it's been a pastime for local governments to exercise their power of eminent domain, taking private land, and then turning it over to private developers who would otherwise be unable to get their hands on it. These local governments should stop beating around the bush and admit that they're selling out to private developers, misusing a special power that no other entity in a city has -- the power of eminent domain.

As Al Knight points out in his Denver Post editorial, "the court has taken the New London case and, more often than not, it reverses state courts that get too aggressive in their reading of prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions." Hopefully the Supreme Court will put an end to this shady and illegal misuse of eminent domain once and for all. Watch here for more details.

Posted by Mark at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Jerry Orbach, who played Lt. Lennie Briscoe for twelve seasons on Law & Order, died today of prostate cancer at the age of 69. While I had heard he was undergoing cancer treatment, everthing seemed to be going well. I had heard that he would reprise his role as Lt. Briscoe on a new Law & Order spinoff entitled Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

Please read his obituary, courtesy of The New York Times. It details his achievements, which go far beyond playing Lt. Briscoe. He was also an accomplished Broadway singer and dancer.

Jerry Orbach will be missed by both fans of Law & Order and non-fans alike.

Posted by Mark at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So you've been told that you need to encrypt your wireless access point. You've heard about wardriving and you don't want to be a victim of people using your WAP without your knowledge. So you activate WEP on your Linksys, D-Link, 3-Com, or whatever commercial brand of access point or wireless router.

Then what happens? You're secure. But my friend Jim found that that's not always the case:

It took me less than 5 minutes to set WEP up.

It took me less than 30 minutes to gather the data.

It took me less than 10 seconds to crack my own WEP key.

So how was it done? Well, I setup a 26 character 128bit WEP key on both my access points. I picked the one closest to me to crack. Then I just downloaded and followed the instructions for Aircrack. Once Airdump was running on my laptop (the hacker in my own test) I simulated traffic on my wireless network from the inside. I waited until I got a little more than 500,000 unique WEP IVs and started up Aircrack. Before I could figure out how the program worked my WEP key was given to me.

What does this mean? It’s been known for years that WEP is worthless. But what this really means, is that for busy wireless networks, WEP is not worthless, it’s a joke. The good news is my wireless network doesn’t normally generate this kind of traffic so the odds of getting hacked by a wardriver are slim. If I suddenly notice a bunch of directional antennas pointed towards my house - then it’s a whole different story.

Now I know why Miami University doesn't encrypt its wireless networks. Instead, it asks us to login with our IDs and passwords in order to obtain an IP address. A much more secure idea, but one that doesn't scale down for the home network.

This, of course, doesn't mean that you shouldn't encrypt your wireless access point. Not everyone is Jim, which means that if the average user wants to listen in on your wireless communications, he won't be able to do it. If a hardcore h4xx0r wants to do it, there's little stopping him -- short of a login system like Miami's.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Posted by Mark at 1:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

What lessons are we to learn from Charles Dickens' classic story "A Christmas Carol"? Obviously the most important lesson is that it is better to give than to receive: Scrooge's life of being miserly has left him devoid of family and friends and, as he sees, will ultimately land him a lonely death.

Dickens tells us explicitly that Scrooge is a terrible human being. He is "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner." He is cold, unfeeling, and, interestingly, does not respond to external stimuli: "No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him." Not only can he not feel emotionally, he cannot feel physically, as though he has some sort of organic nerve malfunction which causes his bitter condition.

Scrooge has other odd characteristics. When the ghost of Jacob Marley visits him on Christmas Eve, Scrooge refuses to acknowledge his existence. "Why do you doubt your senses?" asks Marley. Scrooge replies, "Because [...] a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" He is a man without epistemology. He appears to have no faith in anything, meaning he does not believe in things for which there is no empirical support. The above quotation implies that he has no belief in reason, either: he does not believe the empirical data provided by his senses. He believes whatever is convenient for him at the time. If it does not suit him to believe in the ghost of Jacob Marley, then he does not believe in it. After a while, though, Scrooge cannot ignore the reality of Jacob Marley and so decides that he "must" believe in him.

Marley tells Scrooge that, for his failure to engage in "charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence," he will be punished. Marley himself was punished by being forced to wear "the chain [he] forged in life" and walk the Earth for eternity. This Christmas, Marley's ghost feels compelled to come to Scrooge and warn him of his impending fate. Like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Frankenstein, "A Christmas Carol" is a didactic story: a character who has had some terrible fate befall him has come to warn another character who is on the path to the same fate. If the latter character can somehow change his habits, he may avoid that same fate. It is a typical Christian thing to do and something that the Bible commands Christians to do: to go out and attempt to save the souls of their fellow-men by getting them to believe in Christ as their savior. In this case, salvation comes not from Christ but from charity and concern for one's fellow-man.

Over the course of an evening, the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future show Scrooge that, at one point, he did have concern for others; he should continue to have concern for others; and if he does not, he will die lonely and forgotten and will indirectly cause the death of Tiny Tim. Scrooge's change occurred when he got his own counting-house and began to concern himself with money rather than human beings. His girlfriend left him after she realized that he was more concerned with accumulating wealth than with loving her.

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that there are still people who care for him, specifically his nephew, Dick. Dick is the epitome of Christ's suggestion to "turn the other cheek." Dick is abused by Scrooge (only verbally, when he comes calling on Christmas) but still asks him every year to come to his Christmas party. Where others would have given up on Scrooge long ago, Dick still holds out hope for him. So, too, does Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's long-suffering clerk. Cratchit even toasts Scrooge at his family's meager Christmas meal, much to his wife's discontent. Here, Scrooge displays genuine concern and "an interest he had never felt before" for Tiny Tim, who, the Spirit tells him, could die "if these shadows remain unaltered by the Future."

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is the most fearsome ghost yet. It is here, within the stave concerning the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, that some ambiguity steps in. Is Scrooge genuinely repentant, or is merely scared into repentance? Certainly cynics would like to believe that Scrooge was frightened into good behavior with the threat of death, but the text does not support this assumption. Scrooge displayed genuine concern for Tiny Tim before meeting the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The job of the Ghost of Christmas Past was to remind Scrooge that he was once a feeling person and to remind him also that he was once happy and could have been happier in the present if only he hadn't become engrossed in greed. The Ghost of Christmas Present allows Scrooge an outlet to express his newly-rediscovered concern for others. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is certainly there to scare Scrooge, but only to scare him into a climax that will result in a catharsis later on. By the end of the story, Scrooge is genuinely repentant. He comes to realize that he has little time in which to enjoy his new-found empathy and happiness and becomes afraid that he will not have much time in which to enjoy it. His catharsis comes from the knowledge that he will not die and that he will remain alive sufficiently to enjoy his newfound knowledge.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come utilizes that age-old satirical trick, reducto ad infinitum -- reduction to the infinite. The Ghost creates a dystopic future based on the events of the present. "If these shadows remain unaltered" -- if things continue in the same vein -- then the future that Scrooge sees will be a real future. What we are reading is a dystopia in action: a present problem is projected into the future, providing the present with enough time to change the course of events. Scrooge, ultimately, changes the course of events, which will ultimately (hopefully) result in a different future in which he does not die alone in his bed and where Tiny Tim continues to live.

Certainly Dickens could have done a better job letting his readers know that Scrooge is genuinely repentant, but if read closely, his text assures us that the Ghosts have aroused genuine feelings within him, not merely a fear of death that prompts him to behave. He is not good because he fears punishment, but he becomes good because he realizes that virtue is good in and of itself. He cares about his fellow-men and seeks to enjoy life -- and not just on Christmas, but "all the year." The hope of salvation is there for everyone, and even when it seems to late, it is possible to obtain it. A good Christmas story for people who are stressed out and have forgotten that Christmas means Christ and Christ means "charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence."

Posted by Mark at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

If you were like me and you were trying to travel on Dec. 23, then you were SOL. At Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport (CLE), United Airlines actually ran out of ethelyne glycol, their de-icing fluid. The highways were in such terrible condition that the transportation of chemicals such as ethelyne glycol was prohibited until the road conditions improved. This meant, of course, that United couldn't get any more de-icer. As such, over 200 flights were canceled at CLE, including my flight to Denver.

But feel sorrier for the flight that was supposed to leave at 6:20 AM yesterday morning. The plane sat outside all night and was "frozen solid" (in the words of a United ticketing agent). Passengers boarded the plane as usual, then proceeded to wait five hours. On the plane! At last they were permitted to de-plane and then got very angry when they were told the flight might not be leaving at all. One woman was out for blood, demanding that the ticketing agent get someone to the gate "immediately" who could fix her problem. As expected, the constant berating didn't get her on the flight any faster.

There are thousands of people without power in Greater Cleveland, due mostly to ice-laden trees that fell on power lines. But people in Cincinnati have gotten it worst. My friend Kathryn reports that she has received 16 inches of snow! Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) was actually closed yesterday. All Cleveland got was bitterly cold temperatures, dropping down to 16 degrees two days ago. Would you believe that when I left Oxford last Friday, I could wear only a sweater and be fine? Seriously: the weather was great. The first time it snowed in Oxford was actually a few weeks ago, in December. Halloween was, for the first time, very temperate and didn't require a winter coat. Then Old Man Winter decided to pay us what we were owed since November in one easy installment of Sweet Sassy Crap, This Weather Is Awful.

And yet, the problems don't stop there. I wrote in November about having my name on a terrorist watchlist. You'd think that after a while, a name as common as "Mark Wilson" would be removed. But you'd be wrong. I was again prevented from self-checking-in at CLE; the computer told me I had to see a customer service agent. As before, the agent phoned someone and read my name, birthdate, and drivers license number to the person on the other end. As before, I was permitted to board the plane. Will this happen every time? How do I get off the watchlist? The Department of Homeland Security will be getting an angry letter. Or fifty.

And so the sojurn continues. I will be leaving for CLE -- again -- in about two hours. I think the airline industry is the only industry in which you can be treated like crap and still be expected to pay full price. Any other industry would have given you a discount; at a restaurant, you would have gotten your meal for free or at a reduced price. If the airlines ran a restaurant, they'd routinely bring you the wrong food or spoiled food and demand that you pay full price. Then they'd kick you in the groin.

But if there's one lesson we can learn from this, it's this: don't fly United! They suck!

Posted by Mark at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

What are the minimum qualifications for dating anyone? That's a question that has been left up to philosophers, theologians, and game-show hosts since the beginning of known civilization.

Until now.

One of Jess's friends, known to posterity only as Buddy Butler, invented the BBAT/SPIN while describing a girl to one of his friends as "smart, pretty, interesting, and nice." Gary, the other friend, replied that those are vague adjectives that could be applied -- and should be applied -- to any friend. Anyone who can't meet these most basic of requirements is not friend material, says Gary. And thus the BBAT/SPIN was born.

BBAT stands for "Buddy Butler Aptitude Test"; SPIN stands for "Smart, Pretty, Interesting, Nice": the minimum qualifications for anyone to be a friend. Buddy gets sick of hearing about the BBAT/SPIN every time he and Gary are together with people. Gary wants only to introduce the world to the BBAT/SPIN. I would suggest that the BBAT/SPIN should be applied to people one would want to date, not necessarily to all friends. Gary demands that his friends be aesthetically pleasing. I don't know if I require the same qualifications. At least when I'm checking out the ladies, I demand that they meet the qualifications for the BBAT/SPIN. I'm all about the holistic approach.

Posted by Mark at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Open-source h4xx0rz -- and even regular users -- have been wetting themselves during the past year over Mozilla Firefox, an open-source web browser that, like Linux, is touted as the holy grail of computing. In a utopic future, software will be free and it will be open source. "Open source" means just that: the source code upon which the applications are built is available to the public for viewing, not locked away where no one can see it. The theory behind "open source" is that if you have a million hackers at a million typewriters, you can create a completely secure piece of software, since they will necessarily double-check each other. This model of distributed software development is what powers Wikipedia, the open-source encyclopedia, although a former Encyclopaedia Britannica editor had a few choice words for Wikipedia and its "double-check" model.

Microsoft's Peter Torr examines Firefox and compares it to Internet Explorer in a recent blog entry (via Slashdot). He concludes that if Internet Explorer is insecure, then Firefox is equally insecure. His observation is an astute one: they are not insecure in precisely the same ways. Whereas IE may have been written insecurely, with Firefox, "it doesn't matter how secure the original code is if the typical usage pattern of the browser requires users to perform insecure actions." His blog entry successfully demonstrates that a user must make several insecure decisions when downloading and installing Firefox: the user is redirected to mirrors that he is not familiar with; the user must download and install software that isn't digitally signed; the user can choose never to see warnings that he might be downloading insecure or malicious software (the "don't show me this again" checkbox). While Torr's criticisms are valid, his installation of Firefox is rife with errors that I've never seen before in my many installations of Firefox (I started using it back when it was version 0.7).

As interesting as the original article is the level of comments that have appeared at his website. He wrote a new entry today to answer criticisms from yesterday. It's the typical bunch of comments: you're stupid, you're with the man, you don't know what you're talking about. But he does! Why is it that everyone's tendency is to dismiss someone he disagrees with? For example, Torr was redirected to a mirror provided by DePaul University in order to download Firefox. He suggested (sarcastically) that he didn't know what DePaul University was. He was berated, he says, for "failing to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the universities in a country [he] didn't grow up in." His point is "that the average internet user might not know what '.edu' means, or who controls the server. The New York Times told them to download Firefox from a '.com' address, and now they're downloading it from somewhere completely unrelated." Internet users should be worried when they're redirected. This is how spyware infects a computer: by fooling the browser into going to one website, then redirecting it to another (this is especially topical given the existence of an exploit that allows a hacker to put whatever URL he wants into the address bar of Internet Explorer).

There is no such thing as completely secure computing. It's asymptotic at best and Torr does exactly what advocates of open-source should be wanting him to do: pointing out problems in software instead of hiding those problems. Linuxites complain all the time that Microsoft doesn't make its security holes public; that's exactly what Torr is doing. Why are you shooting him now?

Posted by Mark at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mike commented the other day about software patents:

Reverse-engineering a refrigerator -- a mechanical device -- is a little bit different from reverse-engineering a video game, a work of artistry. Video games, and even more utilitarian computer programs, are more akin to music, movies, and books, methinks -- three media in which the institution of the copyright is rarely challenged, except the continuing (and necessary) squabbles over what constitutes "fair use."

Consider: the manufacture of a refrigerator requires a capital expense for equipment, raw materials, and perhaps even a skilled workforce. Not to mention a tangible, bricks-and-mortar distribution network. Even if I were to reverse-engineer the latest Frigidaire, I'd be in no position to compete for floor shelf at the local Sears.

Pirating computer programs, on the other hand, takes only patience, caffeine, a certain knowledge of computer language, and (for distribution) an Internet connection -- a much lower barrier of entry. A computer program is not a tangible thing that is manufactured; it's a collection of bits. It's information.

I would disagree in the case of video games and computer programs. I would think that they fall under the guise of a patent rather than a copyright. Consider that writing a piece of software takes a capital expense for equipment (the machinery on which the software is written and tested), and a skilled workforce. Software also has a tangible distribution network. The only difference between a refrigerator and a computer program is that I have the resources to make a computer program that is as good as anything Microsoft can come up with. A refrigerator requires more machinery than I probably possess (although if I were a talented engineer, I could probably come up with something resembling a refrigerator), but all I need to make a computer program is myself and some software.

Consider that I am allowed to take my refrigerator apart, but I am not allowed to take my copy of Windows XP apart. Software, I feel, should be subject to the same patent laws as a refrigerator. Windows XP is no more a work of art than the computer upon which it is "written."

Posted by Mark at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott informed me today that it is the 213th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights was written largely by James Madison as a way to protect the people from the government. Originally, twelve amendments were submitted to Congress, but only ten were ratified. One of them eventually became ratified by enough states -- about 200 years later. It became the 27th amendment, which says that pay raises for Congress shall take effect in the Congressional term after the pay raise is ratified. The other amendment limited the amount of people a representative could represent to 30,000.

Madison drew from external sources to develop a list of the rights of United States citizens. One of them was the English Bill of Rights (1689), which contains almost the same wording about cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail as the Eighth Amendment. Another source for the Bill of Rights was the Virgina Statute for Religious Freedom, passed in 1786. It affirmed that, even though God had the power to make all men believe in the same religion, He did not do so, and thus men should respect that decision. It also recognizes that

the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time.

As such, the Virginia General Assembly affirmed that

no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Please read more about the history of the Bill of Rights.

Posted by Mark at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Did you know that when you buy The Sims, you're not buying a video game at all? To buy the game itself outright would mean that you own the game and can do anything you want with it. Electronic Arts, the company that makes The Sims, does not want you to have the ability to do whatever you wish with the product you bought.

What you have purchased is a license to the product. This means that you, the undersigned, agree to use the product only in the manner specified in the license agreement. The End-User License Agreement (EULA) for Windows XP Home Edition is ten pages long (some of which is in French) -- single-spaced. Here are some of the things Microsoft will graciously allow you to do with the software just legally purchased:

You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer").

You may permit a maximum of five (5) computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the Workstation Computer to utilize one or more of the following services of the Software: File Services, Print Services, Internet Information Services, and remote access (including connection sharing and telephony services).

You may also store or install a copy of the Software on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install or run the Software on your other Workstation Computers over an internal network; however, you must acquire and dedicate an additional license for each separate Workstation Computer on or from which the Software is installed, used, accessed, displayed or run.

Aw, thanks, Bill Gates. Now here's a list of things you may not do:

You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.

You may not rent, lease, lend or provide commercial hosting services with the Software.

Software identified as "Not For Resale" or "NFR," may not be sold or otherwise transferred for value, or used for any purpose other than demonstration, test or evaluation.

Unlike a refrigerator, which you may disassemble and re-sell to your neighbor, Windows XP is non-disassemblable and non-transferrable. Unless, of course, your jurisdiction has a law expressly allowing you to decompile software, which it probably doesn't.

Two examples

The software world, perhaps more than any other world, is filled with copyright law, intellectual property law, and contract law. Bitter disputes are fought over who owns what and how much. Take two examples of intellectual property law and software gone horribly wrong.

Software patents are, ostensibly, used to assure that the maker of software gets compensation for his work. Otherwise, what is the incentive to make software at all? If he isn't going to get paid for it, then his opportunity cost is infinite and he'd be better off digging graves. We should compensate the makers of software so that they keeping making software.

Patents, though, have long lives, lives which sometimes outlast their creators. Patents also become commodities which have value and can be bought and sold. A patent entitles its holder to royalties whenever anyone wants to use that patent. This is called a "license."

In 1970, AT&T invented the Unix opreating system, and since that time, it has become the bar-none standard for high-impact computing. In the early 1990s, Linus Torvalds and others developed the Linux kernel, which may or may not have been based on Unix code. Over the years, the patent for Unix had been sold to a company called SCO. SCO makes all of its money by licensing Unix and suing companies that don't purchase licenses for Unix. SCO spent the last several years suing companies which used Linux without a license from it. SCO claimed that, since Linux was a derivative work of Unix (something never definitively proven), it was entitled to license Linux.

Fortunately, the business powerhouse IBM was one of the companies sued. IBM has more money than SCO could ever dream of, which means that it would see the suit to the bitter end. Most of the time, large patent-acquisition corporations sue smaller entities, banking on the fact that the smaller entity will run out of money and settle out of court. This reduces the entire debate to the question of not who is right, but who has more money.

The second case of IP gone wrong comes from Marvel. It's a great comic book company, but it's gone off the deep end this time.

City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that allows players to create their own superhero characters. Apparently, a lot of uncreative people made superheroes that were very similar to Marvel superheroes. Marvel sued NCSoft Corporation and Cryptic Studios, the owners of City of Heroes, for "vicarious" copyright infringment by designing software that makes it easy to infringe upon the rights Marvel holds to its characters.

What's next? Every time Little Timmy wants to dress up like Superman, he has to pay DC Comics a $15 licensing fee? Well, not quite. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that Marvel's legal claims are shaky:

From a trademark point of view, it is difficult to see how these kinds of noncommercial activities could satisfy the "use in commerce" threshold imposed by federal trademark law. Copyright lawyers will reason that these activities, even if technically infringing, are almost certainly sheltered by defenses like fair use or de minimis non curat lex. Marvel, for its part, will doubtless say that its legal beef is with the operators of "City of Heroes," not the players (pay no attention to that pesky complaint, that's just legal mumbo jumbo).

As von Lohmann goes on to say, Marvel's attempt to extort its fans "is both unprecedented and unnecessary." If Marvel wins, then "[t]hose who want to appropriate characters and objects from their favorite movies, comics, games or television shows will be limited to virtual worlds either operated or licensed by the corporations that own those cultural objects." Marvel has created cultural icons and now it demands that every instance of those icons being used be regulated. Either you go through Marvel, or you think of something yourself. And if that thing you think of is too close to something Marvel already has, then you're done for.

Again, the point of a trademark, like a patent, is to give an incentive to Marvel to keep producing cultural content. Game players are not selling stories containg Marvel characters, nor are they insisting that they own the rights to these characters. They're just using the characters for their own personal entertainment -- well within the purview of "fair use."

Posted by Mark at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

After the train wreck that was Blade 2, I had ambiguous expectations about Blade: Trinity, the third installment about the half-vampire vampire hunter. All in all, Blade: Trinity wasn't a bad movie at all.

Except for the copious amounts of product placement.

The Apple logo is everywhere in this film, most notably on Jessica Biel (alias Hotty McHotterson). She's an ass-kicking, bow-and-arrow-wielding vampire killing machine. And what does she do while she kills vampires? Listens to her iPod!. That's right, kids: Blade uses Apple products, and he's badass.

This is one of the most shameless examples of product placement I've ever seen. Jessica Biel puts her iPod headphones on, turns on the music, and then kills vampires. Every kid in America is going to want one an iPod. Why? Because it's super badass. Pretty soon, iPods will appear in most films. George Lucas likes making money. Perhaps the DVD "Special Edition" of The Empire Strikes Back will look something like this:

Posted by Mark at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott goes to the Activision website to download a patch for their popular game Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Before he is allowed to see anything about the game, which is rated "M," the website makes him enter his birthdate. When he tries to download a patch, the website makes him enter not only his birthdate, but also a valid credit card number! Fortunately there are other websites out there that have the patches on them (like our good friend Gamecopyworld).

Posted by Mark at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt decided he wanted a blog on his website the other day, so he enlisted my help in installing Movable Type. He spent all day playing with the templates and it looks really good. In return, he advised me to make the width of my content section smaller and also made the super-sweet graphic you see up there. I think the blog looks better.

Posted by Mark at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott has provided me with another hilarious link. And this time, it's pertinent to my personal life.

Posted by Mark at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

It's something of an urban legend here at Miami University in Scenic Oxford, Ohio that there are more students named "Katie" here than there are minority students. This legend 1) emphasizes the popularity of the name "Katie" in a pejorative way ("everyone is named Katie; you're un-original") and 2) simultaneously emphasizes how few minority students there are here (if a single name can have more representatives than an entire marginalized group of people, what does that say about us?).

University Communications maintains that this is untrue. So, with some help from my friends at the Support Desk, I set out to find the answers to this enigma.

I started by finding out how many "minority" students there were at Miami. The word Miami uses is "multicultural" students, and it reports that "[m]ulticultural students comprise[d] 8.7 percent of students in 2003-2004 on all three campuses." We then discovered that there were 15,300 undergraduate students and 1,400 graduate students on the Oxford campus, and 2,200 students on the Hamilton and Middletown campuses, for a grand total of 18,900 students. After dredging the abacus out from the sub-basement, we discovered that 8.7% of 18,900 is 1,644. Using Miami's numbers, then, there are 1,644 multicultural students on all three campuses.

Next comes the magical command-line voodoo that resulted in the following numbers for people with the following names:

• Katherine - 269
• Katie - 57
• Kate - 56
• Katy - 6

All variations that could lead to "Katie" add up to a paltry 388 students, only 23.6% the amount of multicultural students. Furthermore, due to limitations to our commands, "388" is the number of any person with a university account who has any of those expressions in her name. 388 isn't even the number of students; it's padded by faculty, staff, and emeriti.

It appears that University Communications was right, after all; there aren't more Katies than there are multicultural students. The only name that comes close, actually, is "Michael," which returned 1,239 results. How many people do you know named Mike? How many do you know named Katie? How many do you know that are getting married to each other? Trippy, isn't it? Here are some other fun numbers to tide you over until dinner:

• Catherine - 151
• John - 868 [may include last name with "John," i.e., "Johnson"]
• Jon - 390
• Mark - 268
• Matthew - 588
• Luke - 25

Posted by Mark at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)