I just got back from my week long vacation at the beach. One of my favorite things about vacation, is not keeping up with all the sad and depressing news that happens all around the world. Whether it’s gas prices, politics, or the economy, none of that matters whilst laying around at the beach. Unfortunately when you get back, all of the stupid and depressing stories come roaring back in your face. This article, by Kristin Kalning of MSNBC is a perfect example of the point I’m trying to make.

If you happen to not keep up with video game news, Spore is a game that has been catching alot of buzz. It is being developed by Will Wright, the famous game developer behind “The Sims”, one of the most popular games ever. Spore has a few similarities to The Sims, in that it’s based around creating and maintaining a virtual character/characters. Unlike The Sims, Spore will have players creating creatures using a plethora of different options for nearly limitless designs. You will watch as your creature starts out as a single cell organism, and evolve into a full fledged beast fighting for survival in the world.

To hype up the full game, the Creature Creator has already been released for $9.95. Of course if you don’t want to spend nearly ten dollars for a fraction of the full game, which will release in nearly two months, a free trial is available as well.

With games such as Spore, we get to tap into the creative parts of our brain, and some the more perverted side. There have already been incidents of people posting phallic, breast, and other anatomical creatures across the web. While perusing XSpore.com, a site for uploading your creatures to be viewed, I found all sorts of creatures with human related anatomy being posted. What’s really sad is that most of these offensive creations were the most popular.

I’m not sure what’s more depressing, people who think it’s amusing to make these creations. Or people who get in such an uproar when human anatomy is featured without it being porn or a rated-R movie. Of course kids are going to try and be perverted and make penis looking monsters, or creatures with 20 boobs. When your thirteen, those kinds of things are funny, and if the humor is pulled off right is still funny when your 25.

EA is taking a really strong stance against the offensive creations being featured. They have already gotten together with YouTube to take down the offensive videos being posted. A statement by EA has been made, reminding people that posting anything sexually offensive is against their terms of service.

On my research of Spore creations, I was able to find alot of creative ideas. Here are some of my favorites that have been posted on Sporepedia.

I’d imagine that if Window’s Vista were a person, it would probably be some kind of Frankenstein monster. This comparison seems logical as everyone has their pitchforks and torches out, ready to bring down Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS). InfoWorld is holding the biggest torch, as it has a petition trying to prolong the retail life of Windows XP.

The petition for “Save Windows XP”, started back in January of this year. Since its’ beginning, the petition has drawn in over 111,000 supporters. The petition was started by Galen Gruman. After talking with IT managers and technology officers, he discovered many didn’t find any reason to switch to the new OS. The big cause of the popularity of the petition, came by way of Microsoft’s decision on the future of Windows XP. Retailers and manufacturers will no long be able to sell Windows XP after June 30th of this year. For those who like to build their PC’s, then the software will be available until Jan. 31, 2009. Gruman and numerous others (111,000 others) believe that this is too early to give up on Windows XP.

While some analysts believe that Windows Vista is doomed for failure, an IDC report says otherwise. According to the report, Vista has a 14% hold on the operating system market. While this might seem like a low number to some, the IDC claims that it is on a positive curve towards success.

I’m not a huge fan of Vista, and am holding out as long as possible. I do believe it’s a little extreme to start a petition, and try to halt Microsoft from advancing their new OS. Of course, in a report today, a Microsoft spokes person has said that they purposefully added a feature to Vista that would annoy the consumer. They backed up the decision, by stating they were trying to make third-party developers release more secure programs. Even if they had good intentions, the words “annoy” and “purposefully” never make for good business, especially when people are already fishy of your product.

There are 10 million subscribers to Blizzard’s ever popular World of Warcraft. If you compare that number to the population of the world, it’s minscule, but as game population is concerned it’s, pardon the pun, “massive”.

It looks as though Blizzard is taking the fighting outside of Azeroth and into the courtroom. Blizzard is preparing to take on Michael Donnelly, who created the Glider program for WoW. With the program, users can assign key tasks to undertake, without any human involvement. Anyone outside of the World of Warcraft might ask, How could this benefit the player, isn’t the point of playing a game…to actually play?

Well in a sense, you would think a program such as this couldn’t really have much of an effect. But games such as WoW, that are based on community style tactics have a balance that keeps the game fair for all players. The economy is the key issue here, as most people use the Glider program as an easier means to gather gold and resources. It’s much easier to let a program do the work for you, while you go off taking care of errands and what not.

People that use these kind of programs casually aren’t the big issue at hand. WoW has become so big that in-game currency has become a huge market for real-life currency. To throw a personal twist into the story, I actually know someone who dropped out of school and quit his day job to sell WoW gold online. It’s these kinds of problems that Blizzard is trying to stop with its’ fight against bots, and currency selling.

Blizzard has shunned these practices, and is continually in a fight to root out cheaters. It’s within the Glider program that Blizzard is having problems with. There is programming in Glider, that allows it to avoid the anti-cheating software implemented by Blizzard. While this sounds like a great way to avoid being caught, it’s what Blizzard is using to sue Donnelly. They are suing Donnelly for copyright infringement because the software makes a copy of the game and puts it into RAM.

It’s kind of sad, that a game has caused so much addictiveness that people need to buy game currency to get by. I personally was a WoW gamer for a good amount of time, and it definitely has an addicting feel to it. I bet there’s a WoW addict right now, who has Glider running and cursing this article, all the while finishing up his bag of Doritos he has resting on his stomach.

For as much as we know about science and space there’s just as much if not more that we don’t know to counter it. If there’s one subject that still has scientists scratching their craniums over, it’s dark matter.

If you haven’t looked into dark matter, I suggest that you do as it’s some real freaky stuff. Be forewarned as a lot of the jargon and “big words” that scientists use can be confusing. This problem is being resolved by, Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics, who instead of hording all their knowledge to themselves, is releasing it to the masses.

They are using high school classrooms as a springboard for getting such theories as dark matter out to the public. I’ve been visiting a few sites relating to dark matter this morning, and a migraine has begun to form. What the Perimeter Institute is doing, is making learning about such complex theories as dark matter, fun and engaging.

(Photo Credit: Perimeter Institute)

They are offering a curriculum for science teachers, who wish to use their findings for their class. They have released a DVD series about the history, and theories of dark matter. The series spans 7 DVDs, and their site on dark matter, also has oodles of information on the subject.

Fun Facts About Dark Matter:

- Physicists have observed many galaxies and most are now convinced that, on average, dark matter accounts for 90% of the mass of every single galaxy in the universe.

- Although no one knows what dark matter is made of, physicists currently have a number of theories.One of the earliest theories of dark matter was that it consists entirely of compact celestial objects such as planets, dwarf stars, and blackholes. Careful observations have ruled out this theory.

-Most physicists today think that dark matter is made of a type of subatomic particle that, to date, has never been detected in the laboratory. The two leading candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and axions.

If you’re a teacher who happens to be reading this article, then you can find the teacher’s kit here.

After delay, after further delay Microsoft pulled the chain and released the versions of its new operating system, Windows Vista. Previously tagged “Longhorn”, Windows Vista is the successor to the late Windows XP OS which was released over 5 years ago! It’s been a long time. Time to make a massive leap forward.

However, I will not be buying any version of Vista in the near future. My first impressions were good, a nice clean kind-of sleek design and a few widgets I can push around! But Vista is really just a cosmetic make-over when you consider the time Microsoft have had to catch up with Apple’s Mac OS X. Microsoft should have pushed the boundaries. The company makes billions off CDs which cost a few pennies. Where’s the R&D? Ok, it’s a little more secure. But many are going to have to upgrade your computer to get the most out of Vista. At least 1GB RAM and a new graphics card. Just for starters.

For many, Vista is just a novelty not anything to get too excited about. I won’t be buying the new operating system. Windows XP is doing just fine and I don’t fancy the idea of having to start over again - reinstalling programs and copying all my files. No thanks!

With high usage of the internet in the day to day contemporary life, personal computers have transformed into an interface to a whole new world of knowledge and scope. An exhaustive library, a global classroom and a superlative ground to meet people across geographical margins! Realizing the potential hidden in Internet technology and its crucial role in the future educational, political and social scenario, endeavors are underway to improve the medium and enhance it with more innovative and functional ideas. One such contribution of immense potential is Google Earth. Introduced with a view to have a globe in the World Wide Web classroom, the feature is spectacular and far fetching from more than an educational point of view.

The governments across the international map simply cannot ignore the pivotal usage of the technology that avails a common man the ability to dive into the imageries, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at his/her fingertips. The plausible concern across governments is in the wake of the fact that Google Earth allows free and unquestioned access to anyone, to extremely zoomed in views (from space down to street level and combined imagery) of exhaustive addresses on the face of this earth, without determining any right or reason or undertaking any kind of check before allowing access.

The technology is an open invitation to misuse as well. Many may say it is open to be used for evil intentions for spying, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It would without a doubt be interesting to use Google Earth and spy on your neighbor but the technology is simply not that advanced as yet.

For a clearer and conclusive perspective, it is essential to actually explore Google Earth and find out its capabilities. Developed with good intentions so as to benefit governments, professionals, tourists and children alike, the repercussion of Google Earth may not be as dull as has been depicted. The fact is that Google Earth is still an attempt to provide an Internet-based globe. The fact remains that the capabilities of Google Earth are still limited with respect to clarity and precision of location, especially outside US. Though Google Earth is continually adding high-resolution coverage of various locations on the web, most of the imageries are blurry. All the images being shown at Google Earth are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last three years. Google’s street-level address search is limited to US, UK, Canada, France, Italy, Spain and Germany. While Google Earth is free for personal use, enhanced versions like Google Earth Plus, Google Earth Pro etc. are available for a fee. Google Earth is not able to match up rooftop accurate position for many addresses for lack of a suitable database to support it. To conclude, the spies will have to wait some more time until some technological breakthroughs are achieved and brought about to render Google Earth more effective, robust and user-friendly, across the globe.

Google Earth Link

Link: http://earth.google.com/