Radioactive Communist Zombies

600 Million War Criminals

Are you a war criminal?

According to the International Red Cross, you may be.  That is, if you play video games.  You and 600 million other video game players. 

According to Claire Connelly writing for an Australian website:

THE Red Cross is investigating whether 600 million gamers are violating the Hague and Geneva conventions when they kill and blow stuff up for fun.

Delegates at the 31st International Conference of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Red Crescent raised the concerns over the potential “International Humanitarian Law” violations – which can constitute war crimes - during a workshop in Geneva.

Yes, this is serious, killing virtual enemies in ways not compliant with "International Humanitarian Law" will, according to the International Red Cross, make you a war criminal.

Does this mean you'll be hauled off the The Hauge to be tried for virtual war crimes?  Probably not.  But the International Red Cross plans to talk to video game makers:

A spokesperson for ICRC Australia told news.com.au the workshop looked at how games “represented International Humanitarian Law”, which regulates the legal conduct of warfare.

"The aim for the ICRC is that they send the right signals to their hundreds of millions of players by rewarding respect for IHL and penalising violations," the spokesperson said.

The Red Cross said if it finds the conventions have been violated, they may ask game developers to conform to international laws or encourage governments to create laws that regulate the gaming industry . . .

Meanwhile, who many placed in the world are there actual crimes happening against humanity, such as the murder of Coptic Christians in Egypt?

But never let reality interfere with your desire to control the behavior of other people is the liberal motto.

UPDATE: The Red Cross denies it wants to make 600 million video gamers "war criminals."  But:

The ICRC says it is nevertheless interested in working with video game makers to promote a better understanding of international humanitarian law because some companies also develop war simulations for armed forces.

Who?

Today, Google looks like this (click for a larger image):

Which is to honor the 100th anniversary of Mary Blair's birthday.

On Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday anniversary, Google looked like this:

Which begs the question, who the @*%& is Mary Blair?

Peer-to-Peer Car Usage?

(Hat Tip: Instapundit) You may have heard of Zipcar service that lets you rent cars for short periods, gas and insurance included.  This "car sharing" program has been touted as a way to reduce car usage as people won't have to own cars and thus will be less tempted to use them.

And apparently there's a program where you can share your car, earn some money, and let strangers drive your cherished auto.  What could go wrong?  With Zipcar the company owns the car.  Something called RelayRides allows you to rent out your car to others.  And now if your car is a 2010 or newer GM with OnStar, you can participate in RelayRides without installing extra equipment.

Peer-to-peer file sharing is a good way to get viruses on your computer, not to mention end up storing child porn for some pervert and generally screw up your computing life.  So let's take all those benefits and apply them to your personal car.  Unless the car is going to be sanitized after every rental, count me out.

Oh, and as the renter, how do you know the car is safe and reliable?

It will be interesting to see if this catches on at all.  Zipcar at least makes some sense if you live in a big city (where it's available) and don't own a car.  Renting out your own car is just scary.

Netflix Going 100% Streaming

I've written before that Netflix made it obvious that they wanted subscribers to stream and not get movies on DVD/Blu-Ray through the mail (Netflix's original service).  This is because it costs Netflix five cents to deliver a movie through streaming and $1 to deliver a disc through the mail. 

Last night I, and I assume all Netflix subscribers, got an email saying (in a lot of words) that Neflix is going 100% streaming.

What about DVDs and Blu-Rays through mail?  They are spinning that business of to a new company called Qwikster.  They say that (for now at least) the cost will be the same.

I see some downsides, unless the two companies/websites integrate.  One: I'm hoping all my Netflix settings (including my queue) transfers seamlessly to Qwikster.  Two: I hope Qwikster will point out when movies in my queue are available on streaming through Netflix.  For example, I started watching Battlestar Galactica on streaming when the discs became hard to get and streaming became available.  And I have moved movies from my DVD queue to my streaming queue so that I can watch them without the risk of being throttled.

I guess we'll have to see how this works.  I've been with Netflix since almost the beginning (January 2002; almost 10 years).  I admit I have a love/hate relationship with them.  We'll have to see how this works out.

Facebook Leads to Arrest

If you're going to break the law, don't brag about it on Facebook.  A 19-year-old man eluded sheriff deputies on his motorcycle in Yakima County, Washington, and later bragged about it on Facebook.  As the AP Reports:

Authorities later noticed a Facebook posting by a man boasting about eluding officers, as well as a photo on the page of a motorcycle similar to the one they sought.

[Deputy Chris ]Gray says that when the suspect was rousted at 4 a.m. Saturday by deputies with both a search warrant and a printout of the page, he acknowledged he was the rider.

Better check those Facebook privacy settings, dude. (Actually, I've heard it doesn't matter.)  Or at the very least, don't brag about your criminal activities on the internet.

Coming Soon: Hybrid Trucks

Toyota and Ford Motor Company announced today that they will work together to bring out hybrid trucks and SUVs by the end of this decade.  According to Bernie Woodall of Reuters:

Ford and Toyota plan to collaborate on product development for the future rear-wheel drive hybrid vehicles, as well as for telephone, Internet and entertainment systems.

Developing the hybrids will help each automaker meet stringent U.S. fuel economy standards in coming years, said Takeshi Uchiyamada, vice president for Toyota research and development, and Derrick Kuzak, Ford's product development chief.

There are no plans for collaboration beyond rear-wheel drive hybrids and on-board phone, navigation and entertainment systems, Kuzak said.

Don't know if these are going to be Prius trucks or actual full-sized pickups and SUVs.

But the other interesting thing is "telephone, internet, and entertainment systems."  As cars become transportation appliances (i.e., they'll get you from point A to point B but you won't enjoy the drive) cars and trucks will be "toyed up" with stuff to make you want them despite their driving short-comings.  This happened with the last CAFE in the early 80s.  Crappy cars had lots of toys (back then, power everything) to distract from the fact the driving experience was dismal.

I can't imagine your average farmer or cowboy interested much in a rear-wheel-drive hybrid pickup truck.  But the CAFE rules require high milage, even if no one wants to buy it.  At least you'll have internet access while being transported.

Information Age: Too Much Information

Yes, the phrase "information age" is an about 30 year old cliche.  But I think we may have hit it and I'm, personally, finding it overwhelming.  Twitter was the straw that broke the camel's back. Right now I have two blogs (this one and another one on writing/books), a Facebook account (and two Facebook pages), participate in my publisher's Facebook group, a Google+ account, and two twitter accounts (one political, one about writing).  On the political one I'm following about 20 conservative/libertarian tweeters (and there are more I would follow, I've weeded it down to that).  And the information overload is tremendous.  I could spend all day reading their links (and another day blogging about the interesting ones).  Add in the usual things I read on the 'net, plus just news, and it's information overload.  Now wonder lately I'm having trouble getting through books.

I think I understand why some people just read Us magazine and ignore the rest of the world (what is Katy Perry wearing to the Emmys?).  But I can't do that.  I've been a news junkie since I was a kid.

Just be glad I don't blog about everything I read on Twitter.  Or both my readers would have to spend a good deal of time reading this blog.

Netflix Streaming Availability

The news is all debt ceiling and Rupert Murdoch's phone hacking scandal and I'm having trouble caring about either one (see here). That, and sometimes when I get obsessed about something, I get obsessed.

Netflix is pushing its customers toward streaming by raising the price of getting DVD/Blu-ray discs while lowering the price of streaming (slightly; see here).

According the the Wall Street Journal, Netflix won't say how extensive it's disc library is versus it's streaming library except it is generally recognized it's disc library is more complete. I do know that almost any time I think about watching a movie and check to see if it's available on streaming, it's not.

So I decided to get some empirical data. I was trying to think of a way to come up with twenty-five random movies to check. But I couldn't think of any way to do that without my biases coming in (i.e., picking mostly movies I like or have seen or at least know about). So instead, I picked the Internet Movie Database's (IMDB) top 50 movies as determined by the votes of IMDB's members. Afterall, these are probably the movies people are most likely to want to see. The list ranges from Toy Story 3 (2010) to Seven Samurai (1954). Inception (2010) is the newest movie on the list and City Lights (1931) the oldest. Interestingly, I've only seen 39 of them.

All 50 moves are available from Netflix on disc (mostly DVD, some Blu-Ray). But only 5, or 10%, are available for streaming. Those movies are:

• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• Memento (2000) and is in my Netflix streaming queue because I haven't seen it.
• Toy Story 3 (2010)

Is this a representative sample of Netflix's streaming library? Is it really 5% of their disc library? I don't know. But only 5% of the top movies based on IMDB's user's votes is pretty dismal.

If Netflix really wants me to stream, they need to make it closer to 90% of movies available.

But I don't think it's Netflix's fault. I'm sure the content providers are stopping Netflix from streaming. Netflix has made some faustian deals (such as not releasing discs until four weeks after they go on sale) to keep content providers happy. Maybe the need to make some deals to keep their subscribers happy.

Netflix Really Wants Me to Stream

I've been a Netflix subscriber since 2002.  Most of that time I was on a three-discs-at-a-time unlimited plan.  That is, there was no limit on the number of discs I could get, but I could only have three at my home at a time.  About a year ago I switched to two-at-a-time unlimited because some of what I wanted to watch was available on streaming (i.e., downloading from the Internet).  And streaming is unlimited (and immediate) and was free.

Of course, while you could conceivably watch three movies a day and send them in for three more (about a two-day turn around) and watch, say, 30 DVDs a month, Netflix punishes you for renting too many DVD (and "too many" is very vague).  They "throttle" you and don't send you new releases very fast (you could literally wait months).  I found that on the three-at-a-time plan if I limited myself to two DVDs per week, I tended to not get throttled.  On the two-at-a-time plan I'm on now, I'm doing three every two weeks and that seems to keep me from getting throttled.

Streaming isn't perfect.  Just last night I tried to watch something on streaming and the audio and video synchronization was so far off I just couldn't watch it.  Also, sometimes there's starts and stops with streaming (probably due to traffic on your ISP, I'm guessing).  And the rewind and fast-forward are kludgey.  But the picture and sound quality are almost up to Blu-ray specifications.

But apparently Netflix really wants its customers to stream as much as possible.  Last night I got an email saying they were raising my plan by about 20% because there were going to break out the streaming (and lower its price to $7.99 per month) and then charge for DVDs/Blu-rays separately and there was no discount for having both.

The lowest cost DVD/streaming plan (one disc at a time) is going up 60% (from $9.99 to $15.99).  But it's obvious Netflix would like to stop sending out DVDs and have everyone stream.  Today  the Wall Street Journal (sub possibly required) reported (links original):

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has made it clear he sees Netflix's streaming service as the future of the company. Netflix isn't even bothering to launch DVD-rental services as it expands its streaming service into new territories outside the U.S., such as Canada and Latin America.

As I've said before, it costs Netflix $1 per disc mailed out and back and five centst to stream a movie.  So, of course, they want everyone to stream. The problem is, you can't get new releases on streaming. And Netflix's DVD/Blu-ray library is much bigger than their streaming library. The streaming selections are increasing all the time, but mostly with older content such as "The Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek." It's bad enough Netflix often makes its customers wait four weeks to get newly released DVD/Blu-rays. But it takes a lot longer for new content to hit the streaming pool.

Despite this price increase, I'll stick with Netflix. I was tempted to get rid of the streaming and save the $8 per month but there's a lot of fun stuff on streaming and it is unlimited (I was bored one night and just for fun watched old Dragnet episodes from the early 70s; it was a hoot but I'd never do that through discs).

I do believe in the future all media will be streamed and people won't even bother owning DVDs/Blu-rays because they'll be able to stream anything they want to see at a nominal cost. But that's probably at least 10 years out. In the meantime, we have to go through growing pains.

Old Hard Drive

I didn't even know computer hard drives existed before circa 1985 when someone told me they had gone to the extraordinary expense of using a hard drive for their business computer due to its speed and reliability.  But according to this (hat tip: Instapundit), hard drives have been around since at least the 1950s.  They were just big.

Pictured is a 5 megabyte hard drive that weighs in at one ton.  My first hard drive (circa 1990) was 40 megabytes.  My current hard drive is 500 gigabytes.  Yesterday I bought an 8 gigabyte USB thumb drive for $15.  It would take 1,600 of those one ton 1956 hard drives to equal the thumb drive I bought.  It would take 100,000 of those hard drives to equal the current hard drive in my computer.

Too bad the article didn't have any information on cost.  I bet that hard drive didn't come cheap.