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About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Saturday, August 23, 2003

Al Franken wins one for anti-stupidity
A federal judge on Friday denied Fox News Channel's request for an injunction to block humorist Al Franken's new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," because its title mocks the Fox News slogan "fair and balanced." US District Judge Denny Chin said the book is a parody protected by the First Amendment. "There are hard cases and there are easy cases," the judge said. "This is an easy case. This case is wholly without merit, both factually and legally." And you just gotta love Franken. "In addition to thanking my own lawyers," Franken said, "I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life."

[ Posted at 4:09 PM | Permalink ]

G5 vs. Intel: Let the benchmarks begin
The first Power Mac G5 systems shipped this week, so it was only a matter of time before real (read: non-Apple) benchmarks floated in. Well, the first one is out and .. ta da .. the G5 lost. Go figure. On the other hand, the top-of-the-line, dual-processor, 2 GHz G5 performed admirably, edging out a single processor Pentium 4 system for second place.

[ Posted at 4:02 PM | Permalink ]

Friday, August 22, 2003

Everything you know is wrong: Video games and violence
Continuing a recurring theme here at the Nexus, here is an interesting look at video games and violence, courtesy of CNET's John Borland. I've noticed the contradictory effects of first person shooters with my son Mark, but I'll let Borland's conclusion speak my thoughts. "What I'd love policy-makers and game critics to do is spend a few days with gamers at an event like QuakeCon and pay attention to the kinds of strong community bonds that develop as a result of team play and ordinary human interaction. What I'd like critics to do is stop shooting their mouths off first and asking questions later, if ever." Yep.

[ Posted at 9:04 AM | Permalink ]

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Firebird optimized for the Pentium 4 and Athlon XP
A Mozilla aficionado known as aebrahim is building a daily Mozilla Firebird version with MSVC++ .NET 2003 using some optimisations for Pentium 4/Athlon XP as well as SSE optimisations. It's available here.

[ Posted at 11:10 AM | Permalink ]

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Native OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X: Think 2006
Yikes. OpenOffice.org announced that a native Aqua port of Open Office for OS X has been delayed until at least 2006 because of major revisions in the Open Office API's. I suspect this will cause some cheering at the maligned Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MBU), which is currently working on a new Office for Mac OS X.

[ Posted at 8:55 PM | Permalink ]

Fighting Microsoft
CNET is usually useless and derivative, but they published a fascinating interview this week with the CEO of Ernie Ball, which dropped Microsoft software after being somewhat unfairly sued by the BSA a few years back. Interesting stuff, with some scary news about the way the BSA works. Highly recommended.

[ Posted at 8:43 PM | Permalink ]

Monday, August 18, 2003

Excellent John Carmack interview
Gamespy has an excellent interview with id programming guru John Carmack that's worth reading. Among the tidbits: He's not retiring after DOOM 3 ("I've got at least one more rendering engine to write," he says); the development of the DOOM rendering engine went surprisingly smoothly; id's next game is not going to be a DOOM, Quake, or Wolfenstein sequel, it's going to be something new and that is a foregone conclusion; and there is a possibility that older id games will be re-released using the new DOOM 3 engine. This last one sounds like a great idea: "I thought it would be kind of neat if we took the DOOM renderer, and we had a team take previous games-don't touch the game, just revamp it graphically," he says. "Just take Quake II, and just use the DOOM engine to make brand new graphic models and everything. But don't spend time messing with the gameplay because we know that is pretty good. Just release it as Quake II Remix with brand new graphics technology and sell it at a middle-level price instead of a boutique price. I thought that was a pretty good idea." As someone who has spent hundreds of dollars on id Software, I can only say: Do it. Please.

[ Posted at 1:13 PM | Permalink ]

Sunday, August 17, 2003

I have a secret...
What's blue and green and due for a major overhaul in 2005? I'll give you a hint. It will look like this.

[ Posted at 2:59 PM | Permalink ]