November 2004 Archives

I was given a copy of "Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse"( Cory Ondrejka) at work as a reference for some of the work that we're doing in virtual worlds, and its worth a read. As a programmer involved in developing systems for teaching through simulations, and an SF geek I've always looked forward to seeing the day when the idea of the MetaVerse actually makes it in to really life. This paper gives a background to the state of play and what we should be looking out for, in terms of pitfalls and developments.

I'd still like to see an extension to SecondLife or similar MMPORGs that would allow me to have my own area on my own laptop, that when I want it to be, could be connected to the rest of the world, and have online users wander in.

According to this story on Yahoo, John Ashcroft, former head of the Justice Department, is saying that Federal Judges are "jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush" and that "Courts are not equipped to execute the law. They are not accountable to the people".

What an utter load of crud! As an outsider this appears to be a man who is critising all those who disagree with his bosses point of view, and is therefore marking them as unPatriotic or trying to undermine the rule of democracy.

Surely courts must be equipped to execute the law, otherwise who is? Would anyone give politicians that control? They already control the writing of laws and passing them, it is not appropriate that they are then responsible for the enforcement of them.

The judicial system in any country must be seen to be an agent for the Law as decreed by whomever is in power. Not being an expert in law, it has appeared to me that the process of legislation is to codify a set of rules/guidelines that society must abide by. If those laws are wrong it should be those that must administer them to raise those issues and rebalance them.

I think most people would say that any politician has a certain vested interest in any law they pass, and any advocate/dissenter of a law especially, so how can these people be appropriate to review and balance the law.

This is a great idea for the Ipod. I was working on something similar that would do synthesise RSS feeds and bung them on my Ipod automatically....Must dig it out again. Unfortunately that ran into issues because the default voices (Microsoft :-( default SAPI ones) started to really grate, and I couldn't (and still can't) afford AT&T's Natural voices.

Still must try to put up my code.

Had a link to this article forwarded on to me, about one of the projects that I am actually writing! That's my work!

This sentiment seems to be going around at the moment.

Its strange, but as Sammiches mentioned today, the current US Presidential election could well be one of the most pivotal events this century. It seems that unlike previous years, there are whole blocks of countries that have vested interest in who wins or loses.

Anyway should be interesting....one way or another