Life of Smiley

Everything about this story is oddly hilarious to me. I mean, you know, except for the dead people.

At least, it seems obvious to me. But still an interesting read. Where are they? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing. Such a discovery would be of tremendous scientific significance. What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos. But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit. Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, cer...

Trying to Design a Truly Entertaining Game Can Defeat Even a Certified Genius Ted Castronova, a social scientist and professor at Indiana University, made a name for himself studying the economies of online games, going so far as to calculate the exchange rate between US dollars and EverQuest platinum. But he wanted to do more than study virtual worlds - he wanted to create one. So in 2006, armed with a $250,000 MacArthur Foundation grant, Castronova and a team of grad students got to work designing Arden: The World of William Shakespeare. The aim was to have players explore an Elizabethan environment, interact with characters from the Bard's plays, or just go to a tavern and wager a few farthings on card games like One-and-Thirty. The game was released last fall - to little fanfare. It seems something was rotten in the state of Arden. "It's no fun," Castronova says ruefully. "We failed to design a gripping experience." Really? It took a purported genius an...

I totally agree with and support what this soldier has to say about our government's foreign policy decisions, but more importantly I am grateful for his right to say it. When it comes to active-duty soldiers, that right is technically more of a privilege , and it should not be taken for granted. Do you think Chinese soldiers are allowed to blog? Hell, even if they were, Chinese citizens wouldn't be allowed to read it. I've made it very clear how I feel about our current administration, but I still love this country, and I look forward to the years ahead with hope and optimism. [T]his is not a blog to sing the high praises of my chosen profession, but rather a tool of expression for my disdain for the day in and day out mountains of bullshit and mundanity that I climb every day of the week dear reader, and it is a shame I didn't begin this along with my career. There is an endless amount of moments that could have been recorded that would make the average Joe Taxp...

For whatever reason, I've always been intrigued by what you can't say . Here's a thoughtful essay on the ultimate word you can't say .

He's using an old Jedi mind trick. Get in the rancor pit. P.S. You're fired. At least that's what I would have said to any of these checkout clerks who claim to have been hypnotized into emptying the cash register. What do you suppose he said to hypnotize them? Look into my eyes. You are getting very sleepy. Okay, here's the deal. Give me all the money in your register, then meet me outside in 15 minutes and I'll give you half. Then, tell your dumbass manager that you were hypnotized. Once he sees me on the security tape he'll totally believe you. Look at me, I'm like a cross between Saddam Hussein and Rasputin. Of course he'll expect me to have mystical powers. Same goes for the policia. Okay, now go all slack-jawed and glassy eyed. Oh good, you're way ahead of me. Speaking of the policia, according to the article they are still searching for the "Saddam Rasputin look-alike Hypnotist Bandit." Um, guys? Do you maybe want to l...

If a woman is so amazing that men will pay her $1,000 an hour for sex, good for her. Oh sure, according to Ashley Dupre's MySpace page she left a broken and abusive home at 17, and wound up homeless and addicted to drugs. But even if we suppose that any of that is true, she eventually wound up sunbathing on yachts and charging $1,000 an hour for her time. Talk about your victimless crime. As for Eliot Spitzer the private citizen, I don't believe he's done anything wrong. Legalize prostitution and tax it, I say, and do the same thing for marijuana while you're at it. Basically I'd like to see vice cops looking for other, more productive lines of work. And frankly I'd be a hypocrite if I agreed that Spitzer should step down from public office. I didn't think Bill Clinton's indiscretions hurt his ability to run the country, and I don't believe this should affect Spitzer's ability to govern New York. As for Eliot Spitzer the husband and fathe...

Did you see Rocky Balboa? There's a movie that totally didn't need to be made, but nevertheless it was a reasonably entertaining way to spend two hours. Best case scenario for Indiana Jones IV is that it will be reasonably entertaining. Worst case? We get another Temple of Doom. The fact that they even acknowledged that movie in the trailer, combined with the scenes of cannibals chasing Indy around and just the title of the movie itself has me fearing the worst. It's not the years, it's the mileage.

Jaws Police Chief Passes Away Great whites around the world mourn the passing of Roy Scheider (pictured, right). The actor, best known for his role as a shark obsessed police chief in Jaws, pased away Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was being treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years and had battled with blood cancer for the past three years. He was 75.

I would love to read a behind-the-scenes account of where Longhorn development went wrong. Vista cannot be the operating system that Bill Gates envisioned.

I've always been against the war in Iraq, but not because I lack patriotism, or conviction. Precisely the opposite is true. I've been against it from the outset for a very basic and specific reason. When the UN Security Council found insufficient basis to warrant an invasion in 2003, the US government formed a "coalition of the willing," basically stating that we were going to take our ball and play somewhere else. How ironic that we chose to set aside the outcome of that democratic process and make an essentially unilateral decision to invade Iraq, under the pretense of fostering democracy there. At that moment I felt ashamed to be an American. Since that time I have watched with disgust as our government has participated (or failed to participate) in a series of events ranging from the childishly stupid to the globally tragic , to say nothing of the insidious erosion of our civil liberties at home. I realize there is a tendency to overstate current problems ...

Police: Man Shoots Self During Robbery KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — A man accidentally shot himself in the groin as he was robbing a convenience store Tuesday, police said. A clerk told police a man carrying a semiautomatic handgun entered the Village Pantry demanding cash and a pack of cigarettes. The clerk put the cash in a bag and as she turned to get the cigarettes, she heard the gun discharge. Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The clerk wasn't injured. A short time later, police found 25-year-old Derrick Kosch at a home with a gunshot wound to his right testicle and lower left leg. Kosch was released from the hospital Tuesday and booked into the Howard County jail on a charge of armed robbery, criminal recklessness and battery. He is being held on a $100,000 cash bail. A jail official did not know if he had retained an attorney Wednesday.

After two decades of construction, Boston's Big Dig project is finally coming to an end (officially, as of December 31, 2007). At last count, the project has cost taxpayers over $14,600,000,000. Far worse, it has taken the lives of four workers and one civilian . On the bright side, Boston's central artery has been transformed from this: to this: yay! If the Big Dig had been my idea, I think I would be committing ritual suicide right about now.

I am curious (and somewhat dubious) to see what the late-night talk shows come up with when they return in January sans writers. Especially in Stephen Colbert's case, I believe he could still put together a funny show without the help of a full writing staff. The Daily Show also has a ton of on-screen talent who I believe are capable of being funny without a script. But questions over the format of both shows -- which rely heavily on writers -- remained unanswered Thursday, with many segments of both thought to be off limits according to WGA strike rules . Strike rules?! How do they get to have rules? Isn't this like a petulant child refusing to join in a game, and then trying to disrupt everyone else from having a good time? The WGA's stance strikes me as unfair, unreasonable, and downright un-American. There I said it; all striking workers are communists. Or, to use the modern term, terrorists. Bottom line: even if hiring scab writers or other work-arounds are cons...

After Talks Fail, Writers' Strike Could Drag On "There's a huge transition in our business," Steven Bochco, creator of the TV hits "L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue," said in a recent interview. "This may hasten the demise of the model that we've all worked under." I would love to see this strike turn network television on its head. I've said it before and I'll say it again. With a few notable exceptions, unions are evil. If you aren't happy with your contract, go work somewhere else. If you can't get more money somewhere else, guess what? You don't deserve more money. Who needs television writers anyway? If it weren't for sports in HD, I would totally drop cable. Just give me the Internet and a good book.

Like many football fans, I was recently up in arms over the current feud between big cable and the NFL Network, which prevented me from watching Packers-Cowboys in the comfort of my own home (and will similarly prevent me from watching Pats-Giants on Dec. 29). But then I read this article by the Sports Guy, and realized that this is nothing new. I've always been annoyed that I can't watch any and every NFL game that I want to each week. Well, I could if I had DirecTV and was willing to pay for Sunday Ticket, but I don't and I'm not. That being said, there's a larger issue here that needs to be addressed. It's hinted at in this article about the Packers-Cowboys game: The league hoped to get 70 cents per customer per month from the cable carriers for distribution on their popular basic digital tier. If the NFL could sell its network to cable companies across the country, including Comcast and Time Warner's 38 million subscribers, the rate would generat...

Bungie Studios, makers of the wildly successful Halo video games, have proudly announced their renewed independence from Microsoft. Isn't that a bit like Jennifer Anniston announcing her separation from Brad Pitt? Back in 2000, Microsoft needed a game to help establish the Xbox as a contender in the console wars. They purchased Bungie for a reported $20 million. Now seven years later, Microsoft maintains complete ownership and control of what has become a billion-dollar franchise. Bungie are pretty much right back where they started, and it seems unlikely they will ever create another game as successful as Halo. I doubt Jennifer will ever land another Brad, either.

I just caught a repeat of the Daily Show -- yes, this is where I get most of my news -- on which they discussed The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual , which is currently available on Amazon.com for ten bucks. One of the authors, Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, explained that the manual was written because we are fighting an enemy that is able to learn and adapt, and we must be able to out-think as well as out-fight them. Um, guys? Shouldn't the first step in out-thinking the enemy involve not selling them our counterinsurgency field manual?!

The Halo universe is clearly the stuff of pulpy space opera, and the Master Chief is as hard-boiled as they come. Much of the action consists of the Master Chief shooting alien antagonists while swapping Eastwoodian one-liners with his sidekick, a computer program named Cortana who appears as a sexy hologram. But the Halo games also have a curiously lyrical quality about them. They're full of literary touches and evocative phrases--the Master Chief travels in a spaceship called the Pillar of Autumn. The Halo universe is rich in lore--gamers love to be there the way some people love to pretend they're in Jane Austen novels. The action isn't nonstop; instead it includes dramatic beats and even moments of melancholy solitude, with Romantic weather effects and sublime vistas and soaring Gregorian chants. The game has a moody, Wagnerian quality--the Master Chief is dwarfed by towering alien architecture that recalls Piranesi. Halo takes itself seriously as, if not art, certainly...