Month: April 2006

Ugobe’s Pleo

Caleb Chung, the guy who created the Furby, has spent the last five years working on a sequel, which will be available in time for the 2006 holiday season — the Pleo,

It’ll retail for about $200, but it is equipped with 40 sensors and 14 servo joints controlled by algorithms designed to make it react in a lifelike manner to its environment.

How well do they succeed? Check out the video of Pleo’s debut at DEMO 2006.

I’ll take two.

John Lott Continues to Embarrass with ‘Freakonomics’ Lawsuit

John Lott continues to be an embarrassment to gun rights supporters, this time filing a lawsuit against University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt over Levitt’s bestselling book, Freakonomics.

I haven’t read Freakonomics but apparently the book claims that other researchers have been unable to reproduce Lott’s findings about the extent to which concealed carry laws lead to a decrease in crime. Lott charges that this is not true and that by claiming it is, Levitt is defaming him.

The lawsuit turns on the definition of the word “replicate” with Lott claiming that those who have not found a decrease in crime where concealed carry laws have been enacted did not “replicate” his studies since they relied on different methodologies.

Apparently Lott doesn’t think the last few years worth of revelations about the flawed methodology in his book More Guns, Less Crime and his bizarre personal behavior haven’t damaged his reputation enough, so he’s hoping to drive the nail in the coffin with a frivolous lawsuit.

Every new item about Lott brings me closer and closer to wondering if he and Michael Bellesisles weren’t separated at birth.

Source:

Best-seller leads scholar to file lawsuit. Michael Higgins, Chicago Tribune, April 11, 2006.

Michigan Video Game Law Tossed

Back in 2005, our grandstanding governor Jennifer Granholm called for the legislature to pass a bill to ban the sale of “violent” video games to minors. The legislature granted her request, and the bill was signed into law in September of 2005.

This month, U.S. District Court Judge George Caram Steeh issued a permanent injunction against the ban, finding it unconstitutional. In his decision to issue the injunction, Steeh wrote that,

The interactive, or functional aspect, in video games can be said to enhance the expressive elements even more than other media by drawing the player closer to the characters and becoming more involved in the plot of the game than by simply watching a movie or television show. It would be impossible to separate the functional aspects of a video game from the expressive, inasmuch as they are so closely intertwined and dependent on each other in creating the virtual experience.

That’s a fancy way of saying that the interactive nature of video games does not — as Michigan had argued — provide them with less First Amendment protection than other media, such as novels or movies.

Although the Michigan law would have only prevented the sale of games to minors, Granholm showed her true intent in taking on the craptastic “25 to Life” (which Gamespot describes as “a lifelessly generic shooter that, at times, feels like Max Payne without the fun.”)

In an official press release Granholm argued that not only should the game not be sold to minors, but that it should not be stocked at all by Michigan retailers,

Governor Jennifer M. Granholm last week called on retailers across Michigan to support a national boycott of the video game “25 to Life” by not selling the game in their stores. In a letter to the retailers, Granholm said taking the game off store shelves is a critical step in the fight to keep inappropriate and dangerous forms of entertainment out of the hands of our children.

“Taking this game off your shelves is not only the best way to ensure that it does not end up in the hands of children, it also sends a message of support to our law enforcement community that we will not support those who would profit from the production and sale of such games, no matter what the intended audience,” Granholm wrote.

Right, and having Michigan cable companies boycott HBO is the best way to make sure children don’t watch “The Sopranos.”

Sources:

Breaking: Michigan Violent Games Law Thrown Out. GameDaily, April 3, 2006.

Governor Granholm Continues to Fight to Keep Violent and Sexually Explicit Video Games Away from Children. Press Release, March 15, 2006.

It’s Not Easy Being Heathen

A University of Minneapolis survey has revealed that atheists are America’s most distrusted minority. According to a University of Minneapolis press release (emphasis added),

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

The survey found that 47.6 percent of people interviewed said they would disapprove of a child’s wish to marry an atheist, compared to a mere 33.5 percent disapproval for marrying a Muslim.

According to an ABC News commentary by John Allen Paulos (author of the crappy book Innumeracy,

Many of those interviewed saw atheists as cultural elitists, amoral materialists, or given to criminal behavior or drugs. She states, “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

Huh? What’s wrong with a little amoral materialism and self-interested anti-social behavior?

On the other hand, it doesn’t exactly help the atheist PR case that the two worst mass murderers in history — Stalin and Mao — were both doctrinaire atheists. Atheists like to bitch about things like the Inquisition or the witch hunts, but those would have been slow days for Stalin and Mao.

But seriously. What almost none of the commentators on this study noted was that the low opinion of atheists is almost certainly motivated by prominent media coverage of atheist idiots like Timothy Shortell, Natalie Anger, and Michael Newdow. When most of the atheists that the average American hears about are raving lunatics who seem to have nothing better to do than be offended by every public display of religious belief, it is hardly surprising that so many Americans think atheists are completely alien to their values.

Thanks guys!