The Week In Geek

This week on Geek-tastic we learned:

 

• We have fabulous new Geek-tastic wallpapers.


• The G.I. Joe comics were cooler than the cartoon.


• Imaginationland is Emmy worthy.


• Keanu Reeves is a creepy, creepy man.


• The force has been unleashed.


• The Lego Watchmen are awesome.


• We're all very happy Michael Bay didn't direct Dark Knight.


• The CG Resident Evil movie will make the TSA very unhappy.


• Bret Ratner would have made a dumb Superman movie.


• The GeekRoundTable posted up a great new podcast.


• Even great movies can suffer from gaping plot holes.

Internet Porn And You

Thanks go to my friend Gus for pointing this little jewel out to me.  Oh the wonders of the internet!

Avast Ye! It Be Talk Like A Pirate Day!!!

 

Well shiver me timbers, it be Talk Like A Pirate Day, and I didn't even be knowing this. 

 

Truly sorry I be for me terrible lack of pirate awareness.  I be a sorry bilge rat indeed.

 

So listen up you scury scum, best you'd be to be talking like a pirate as well, or I'll have to run you through with me shiny new cutlass.  And don't go thinking you're safe if you be a man neither.  Just because it be called a cutlass don't mean it don't work on the lads just as well.

 

 

I be off to go pillaging ye local market for some rum now!!!!  Ye have been warned, talk like a pirate or ye be cursed.

 

No fear have ye of evil curses says you!  Properly warned ye be says I.

Geek Item Of The Week

 

The Ex - Unique Knife Holder

 

Seriously, how awesome is this knife set?  I've wanted this set for forever, but have yet to actually break down and buy it.  It just looks so damn cool.  Who wouldn't get at least a tiny little thrill everytime you had to put the knife back by shoving it through the guy's head.

 

Maybe I'm just a creepy psycho killer or something, but I think this thing is just damned cool looking.  Just think about how this would look sitting on your kitchen counter next to your boring old toaster and blender.  At the very least it's bound to start up conversations when you have friends over.

EA Finally Responds To Complaints About Spore's DRM

 

Just about anyone who has purchased a copy of Spore can tell you that the DRM that comes with the game is a huge nightmare.  Limited numbers of activations and other things prevent the rightful owner of the game from being able to do what the really want to with it. 

 

To a degree though, EA is at least realizing that their DRM is pissing a lot of people off.  In a press release today, they said the following.

 

Two weeks ago EA launched SPORE – one of the most innovative games in the history of our industry. We’re extremely pleased with the reception SPORE has received from critics and consumers but we’re disappointed by the misunderstanding surrounding the use of DRM software and the limitation on the number of machines that are authorized to play a single a copy of the game.

 

We felt that limiting the number of machine authorizations to three wouldn’t be a problem.

 

· We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem – and that if games that take 1-4 years to develop are effectively stolen the day they launch, developers and publishers will simply stop investing in PC games.
· We have found that 75 percent of our consumers install and play any particular game on only one machine and less than 1 percent every try to play on more than three different machines.
· We assured consumers that if special circumstances warranted more than three machines, they could contact our customer service team and request additional authorizations.

 

But we’ve received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect. And while it’s easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.

 

Going forward, we will amend the DRM policy on Spore to:

 

· Expand the number of eligible machines from three to five.
· Continue to offer channels to request additional activations where warranted.
· Expedite our development of a system that will allow consumers to de-authorize machines and move authorizations to new machines. When this system goes online, it will effectively give players direct control to manage their authorizations between an unlimited number of machines.

 

We’re willing to evolve our policy to accommodate our consumers. But we’re hoping that everyone understands that DRM policy is essential to the economic structure we use to fund our games and as well as to the rights of people who create them. Without the ability to protect our work from piracy, developers across the entire game industry will eventually stop investing time and money in PC titles.

 

So that still doesn't fix the problem that DRM is stupid in the first place and shouldn't be on games.  Yes, priacy is a problem, but honestly, if you make a game good enough, people will want to buy a copy of their own.  Piracy doesn't really account for a huge percentage of game players.  The vast majority of people still buy their games legally.  All DRM does is limit consumers rights.  They bought the product, they should be allowed to do with it as they please.

 

But that's just my two cents.

 

Original link via (kotaku)

Some Silliness For A Friday

 

 

It's a bit of a slow news day thus far today, and I'm fairly busy at work, so there's not much to report on at the moment. 

 

To keep you entertained in the meantime, here's a fun video of a beam of light playing the piano. 

 

Enjoy!

20 Enjoyable, Yet Totally Horrible Sci-Fi Films

 

IO9.com has an interesting list up called The 20 Best Worst Science Fiction Movies Of All Time.  Basically, it's a list of really crappy movies that are still totally enjoyable to watch.

 

However, I completely disagree with a few of the entires on the list because I don't think they're bad sci-fi films.  One or two of them, I would even argue, are great sci-fi films.

 

Specifically, Event Horizon.  I love that movie.  It's a great Sci-fi horror film, and we don't get to see nearly enough of those . 

 

However, I'll freely admit that Starship Troopers, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Fifth Element are totally guilty pleasure films.  I know they're horribly bad and cheesy films, but I love every second of them.

 

Milla Jovovich's delivery of the word "Multipass" in The Fifth Element is enough itself to make that film awesome.  She's just so damn cute when she says it.