Moments ago, SuperK (who I now work with) explained to me one of the many processes I’ll have to endure at my new job. He used the Windows Messenger Whiteboard and drew it in real time from his office down the hall from my cubicle.

Now this is an example of how technology should be utilized!

Numerous game and tech sites (including /.) are posting that Sony is going to implement some serious DRM on future games in an attempt to discourage (or destroy) the used game market.

If you don’t know anything about the used game market, think about the used music market. If you don’t know about the used music market, think about the used condom market. You with me?

Anyway, the used game market is HUGE. Gamestop, EB Games, Game Crazy, GameFly, etc, all make oodles of money by taking in game trade-ins and then selling them for a nice profit. In my experience, a typical trade-in will earn you roughly 10-30% of whatever the store will try to sell the title for, and titles are general only 10% off of the retail price.

Obviously, there’s a big incentive for these stores to carry used games. Many stores have clubs that you can join to get additional discounts on used games, making the appeal to gamers that much greater.

Thing is, buying used instead of new means the money goes to the retailer rather than the console manufacturer or software publisher. Sony doesn’t like this. They already have attempted to cripple music CDs with DRM, so that you can’t make copies of the songs to your computer for sharing. In this regard, the used game rumors are not surprising.

Consider the used software market. Well, there really isn’t one, is there? DRM is so powerful for applications such as Photoshop and MS Office, that you don’t even consider the possibility of buying a used license anymore. Sure, people still get cracks from warez sites, but you don’t go down to CompUSA and pick up a used version of Windows or Dreamweaver.

However, you can still buy and sell DRM’d CDs used, so this would be the first use of DRM to disable the used media market. Perhaps if the rumor is true and the new system works, Sony will deploy similar tactics down the road for CDs.

My feeling is that I don’t mind a single user license for games, movies and music. However, if this is going to be the case, then I think the cost of the product should come down. Without the ability to resell the product, there is no recourse left for a consumer who has a pile of shit on their hands.

I’ve owned many piles of shit in my life, and most I’ve traded in for what was often another pile of shit. Once in a while, though, I’ve gotten something good and kept it. My point is that I will be less reason to take a chance on purchasing a game or CD or DVD if I have no recourse for the pile-of-shit factor.

Of course, there’s the potential for game publishers to go to a subscription-based model, and dump traditional software packaging all together. I’d be up for a reasonably-priced subscription as an alternative, as long as it doesn’t turn into the game-version of cable-tv. Having 500 games to choose from won’t mean anything if they are all piles of shit.

If I were a character in a video game, standing next to a pile of logs held fast with only with a tiny stake shoved haphazardly into the ground, I probably wouldn’t jostle the wood by, let’s say, walking on top of the pile.

But that’s just me…

There’s been a lot of discussion around the halls of WIF about the death of a certain snail on our recent film shoot. I, for one, take no pleasure in death of any kind (except for what the French refer to as “le petit mort” or little death). However, the snail-squishing on the set of All I Ever Think About Is Death was something that just couldn’t be avoided.

A major shift in the plot occurs as a direct result of the snail’s crackling departure from this mortal coil. And let’s not forget that no one understands a coil better than the original spiral-housed slug. Such a slow-moving creature must barely even notice being killed by a stomp of the shoe. Think about how fast a foot coming down would be to a snail. It would be the equivalent of a lightening strike to us.

In fact, the proceeding logic suggests that stepping on the snail was actually a humane death, just like being instantly killed by lightening would be for us. The snail could have been sick, and gone through a long decline in heath if it wasn’t for my swift shoe. Nobody wants a sick snail oozing across their front porch, right, antennae all limp and sad?

However, it is fitting that a short film that mocks obsessive attitudes towards death would be nearly derailed by death itself. Perhaps we should dump the entire film and re-imagine it as a documentary about whether or not snail-death in a film is acceptable.

I would tell you all that the snail died for a good cause, to be immortally painted in the frames of our little film. Unfortunately, Ivan forgot to hit the record button on the camera, so the only shot of the snail’s death is the one above, taken by (and ripped off from) Mr. Inside Woodland.

So I got taken over someone’s nerd knee yesterday at my new job, simply because I asked a question reserved for jocks and ladies (yes, I know that some ladies are nerds—-I’m referring to the non-nerdy ladies that comprise 95% of the lady-world).

A coworker of mine has a screensaver on his computer that mimics the functionality of an actual Star Trek rocket ship. I say rocket ship in hopes that someone out there knows that they are actually called intergalactic cruisers, space yachts, star trucks or something of the sort.
So this screensaver, it looks just like the controls of a rocket ship from Star Trek.

Me: Hey, dude, is that some Star Trek thingy on your computer?

Coworker: Yes, it controls my whole system.

Me: Really. (thinking I’m smart) So that’s your GUI? How did you make it? (Mental translation=Why would you make it?)

Coworker: (With disbelief and disappointment in his eyes) Um, it’s just a screensaver.

Me: Yeah, totally. Screensaver.

The problem is that I’m used to being the biggest geek in the office. But my question made me look like a jock or a lady or maybe even a lady jock. I hastily returned to my cubicle and set my phaser to dumb.
Turns out, I wasn’t so far off in my assumption.