Diab- sent along this great news from BetaNews. Spammers who dont give an opt-out for getting off that mailing list are now breaking the law!

...House of Representatives nearly unanimously voted yesterday to pass H.R. 3113, which bans unsolicited e-mails lest the spammer provide a return address which the consumer can use to opt-out of said mailings. In a 427 to 1 vote.

Now we just gotta find the 1 jackass who voted against it and sign him up for every mailing list on the damn net.

Do yourself a favor and don't keep the Microsoft Windows Media Player 7 installed unless you don't want to play media. I installed this pile last night at home and tried out some videos immediately afterwards. A very small percentage of them actually displayed video, and the ones that worked only worked when I hadn't previously played the "broken" videos. Worse off, when I'd hit "Stop", a dialog box saying "Not implemented" would pop up. Really.

The thing is a complete pile. From what I saw, they're trying to compete with RealPlayer and have all the annoying crap all over the screen when you open a file. Worse off, the thing makes you reboot every time you install or uninstall. This thing plays videos for God's sake, does it need to integrate itself enough to force a damn reboot? This, by the way, was on Windows 2000.

Luckily, it didn't remove my Media Player 6.4, so I recommend that you either don't download this, or install it and immediately uninstall it so you can get the cool new codecs it installs (it apparently won't remove those unless you tell it to).

Everyone thought Steve had just been playing Diablo2 this past week or two. Not true, as FusionRx come across Steve's special project..getting stinky feet. It seems he's been trying to get athlete's foot for the past 9 days, even wrote up a diary and took pictures. Also keeping a "itch/pain/smell" graph. His feet are quite raunchy right now. Don't try it at home kids! And tell Steve he should wash.

Since its opinion article Tuesday, Saeger dug up this statistics compilation that may shock quite a few of you guys. The University of Connecticut conducted a survey and check out some of the results. This one is the kicker:

Three-quarters of the respondents believe that violence on television and in video games and music lyrics contributes to violence in real life. Eighty-three percent think violence on television contributes to violence in real life; 74% think violent video games do the same, and 72% think violent music lyrics are to blame.

Jeeze, with public numbers like that how can a politician avoid not putting more restrictions on violence?

Something to read for the weekend and ponder. A 100 person committee has spent the past two years reviewing all the online legal and jurisdictional issues on the internet and has filed their report. The recommendation? A Global Online Standards Commision. Basically they want to put everyone in the world using the internet under the same set of laws. Well, I thought it was interesting.

I'm pretty sure Steve saw X Men last night and was gonna give him time to post up his thoughts and add mine. But, well, it's 2pm so all bets are off :-)

X Men was really, really fun. The plot was pretty decent, the fighting scenes were good (though a bit on the obviously wire-intensive side) but I think what really got to me was how the characters just came alive in this movie. Dialogue and actions were just spot on for the way they developed the movie. Now, I never really followed much of the comics or the cartoons, so I didn't have some of the characterization critiques that some of the people I know that are big fans of the comic have. But for the most part, they had very minor nits and they really enjoyed the movie too.

Unlike nearly every other comic book movie made (with the exception of the Transformers movie (and yes, I know they were toys before the comics...) ), this one's a real watcher in my opinion.

update Steve:For once, Jack is right. The movie was the good stuff. Better than I expected and aside from one hokey line from Storm it wasnt even cheesy.

Over at PS2.IGN is a 15mb movie by Volition, and has characters of their upcoming games Summoner and Red Faction playing a pen and paper RPG, and it's pretty hilarious. It's a 15mb download and is a self-executing Bink movie (you dont need special codecs or anything). I order you to download it, and if you don't find it funny something is wrong with you.

Orthox sent in news of a change at Heinz. What kind of color do you expect ketchup to be. Red, right? Well, soon you will be buying green ketchup. Yup green. It's like "oh are you sure this hasn't been in your fridge for 20 years?". They mainly expect it to catch on with kids though, as they suspect adults will probably freak out at the sight of green ketchup.

We've got another internet privacy suit on our hands.. guess who the culprit is? AOL. According to a lawsuit filed against them it seems AOL has been using Netscape to monitor transfers. But not just on their own websites, all websites. Every time you download anything.

The "SmartDownload" feature in the Netscape Communicator Web browser secretly transmits file download information to Netscape and America Online (which acquired Netscape in 1998), it states. [snip] "...The contents of an Internet server's computer -- which contains communications between the site and the user -- is being compromised."

Ok, now a different limey Tabloid is reporting that Britney Spears wants to marry Prince William and has split up with Justin Timberlake. Of course, Maarten reported a few days ago that she was getting married to old Justin. Now, before the Shack becomes Teen Magazine, I think we're going to stop on the whole reporting of news from British tabloids. Except, of course, for The Register, which just rules.

Yep, that's right. It's apparently been invented and where did I find this story? CNN? Nope. Slashdot? Nope. I found it myself, right here in downtown Austin.

It's near the end of the night and me and Andy were hanging out on 6th street where I see a really depressed looking girl sitting on a spinning assemblage of PVC pipes. Being very, very drunk I had to investigate. In front of the contraption was a chalkboard that said "Spin N' Grin" and a man who looked like he was begging for change as early as that morning. Here's my, ahem, exclusive interview with this visionary (from memory):

Me: So what's this?
Man: It's an invention
Me: What's it do?
Man: If you sit on it and spin around, it will never stop spinning
Me: Well, there seems to be a lot of spinning but not a whole lot of grinning. What's her deal?
Man: She's focusing.
Me: Umm, ok. So what you're saying is that you've invented the first perpetual motion machine out of PVC pipes?
Man: Yep. Wanna try it?
Me: No thanks, bye.

So there you have it, a breakthrough in physics and thermodynamics unveiled here at the Shack. Eat that, Associated Press!

Since it is Friday, we're just about all looking towards the weekend yes? What kind of world will you be spending the weekend in though? Just look at this stuff below, makes you wanna stay home and play Counter-Strike for 18hrs at a time:

- Some cop shot 3 people in a dispute over a $1.50 water bill (!)
- Some dude married one lady, thinking it was another. (He married a daughter on... accident?!)
- Hey look, rocket boots! Ok this one makes me wanna go outside, I fucked up the theme
- Lastly, it looks like Spawn comics are running into some real trouble with a lawsuit.

Well, I had 2 stories that made you not want to go outside. Thats enough for a theme I think.

It's a special paranoid Friday for you guys. Firstly just because they are my host, Verio aka NTT is being investigated by the FBI. They dont take very kindly to a Japanese company buying up a major US backbone provider.

...the inquiry is a response to FBI and Justice Department concerns that law-enforcement agencies maintain access to Verio's Internet backbone so that they can obtain wiretaps and serve subpoenas

On top of that, check this out from /. A start-up called Quova is pinging and tracerouting the entire Internet, causing firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems to go crazy, and some security-types to get mad, according to this story

Since we've skimped out on the nerdy stuff lately here are a couple of things you guys might find interesting. Firstly it looks like the Moon of all places may have enough power source for the earth (provided through Helium-3) to power the Earth for 'thousands of years'. Also, NASA is working on some Space Sails that could power interstellar voyages for our beloved space travelers. Laser beams and microwaves!

What the hell? Jack updating word? Well, Steve's in Seattle begging Microsoft for a buyout and Maarten must just be out smoking tons of hash... Since I've got a half day off, may as well steal a bunch of other news and toss it up here.

Meanwhile, here's some fun TV weirdness. I was having problems getting to sleep last night, so I went a-surfin the channels. Well, on the good ol' public access station, they were running a video clip of President Clinton saying over and over and over and over, "How can we be an independant, sovereign nation leading the world in a world that is increasingly interdependant?" while having the following text on the screen:

Mister Stinky Is A Traitor Bitch

This in and of itself was pretty funny, but I'd flip back every so often and the message kept changing, so I took down the more memorable ones (the last being the funniest I think), which were:

Mister Stinky bends over for the Chinese slave state
Mister Stinky is cumming[sic] for your guns
Mister Stinky will bite your face as he rapes your mother.

Oh, and today's news is brought to you by Blue and AGN3D.

Man, it's July 4th, and CNN just has to post all these unpatriotic stories... Like:

• Study: Women's salaries lag behind men's pay - Awww, couldn't this just wait till after the forth? Or maybe they knew not many people would be hitting the old web site today... Hmmm...
• Court strikes down voter-approved bans on ATM fees - Booo, hisss... I mean, I just LOVE seeing this on my statement when I take out $200:
  06/26/2000 1ST NATL BK OF 06/23 WITHDRWL 5501 I-35 AUSTIN TX     $-201.75
  06/26/2000 1ST NATL BK OF 06/23 WITHDRWL 5501 I-35 AUSTIN TX FEE $-1.25
• Teachers' union: Extra year of school could help struggling students - Yeah... Help students DROP OUT. Not many people know this, but Steve only made it through the sixth grade, and look how well he's doing. Viva America!
• Firefighters want their California town to reconsider fireworks sales - I guess people don't have the right to blow off their own hand anymore. I bet I know the name of this town... Moscow! Are you with me? Huh?

update Jack - Apparently we won the cold war. Whoops.
update 2 - Looks like someone had too much coffee this morning.

Being as it is the 4th of July we should celebrate what is great about America or something right? Well it has just been released that a hacker back in 1997 actually disrupted a NASA mission while it was in progress interrupting NASA's ability to monitor the life signs of the astronauts.

We had an activity at NASA center where a hacker was overloading our system...to such an extent that it interfered with communications between the NASA center, some medical communications and the astronaut aboard the shuttle

Yeah, this story is actually 2 days old but so is the glass of milk on my desk, and I'm still lookin at it.

So the 4th of July is nearly upon us, what's everyone doing tomorrow? Playing Diablo2 all day? BBQ'ing? Just waiting for the fireworks? Catching up on all the porn in the newsgroups? Posting all your porn to the newsgroups?

Yeah, this is a lame news item. Sorry. Maarten made me do it.
update Jack
Regarding your non-Americans being offended by this post, it's Maarten's fault too:
<Jack> Hey Maarten, what about the people outside the states?
<Maarten> Like me? Oh, fuck em

So don't blame me! Besides, you all get like 6 weeks vacation a year, Americans are lucky to get 3! :-)

Normally this wouldn't be a full size item, but this is a slow day so whatever. Something Awful has put up a guide on how to make a successful FPS. It's pretty funny, with over fifty(!) FPS staples. Here are a few favorites:

13. Enemy aliens often want to destroy the Earth because they've been driven insane from the flashing green and red colored lighting aboard their spacecrafts. All alien rooms and structures should have at least five light sources, each pulsating with a different bright color. This creates "atmosphere".

15. Bad guys, by nature, are real jerks. They should simply stand around and act like nothing has happened if their buddy, who was right next to them, is shot and killed.

50. Players should have some intense gravitational attraction either to or from ladders. Getting on or off them should be an incredibly complex task, second only to trying to swallow the Statue of Liberty.

update Jack - Newsflash! Maarten already posted this a few days ago. Another newsflash! I don't care, so stop your complaining! :-)

It's a lazy Sunday, so here's a bit of an interesting story (to me at least). The Register is talking about the "permatemp" situation at Microsoft. Apparently there are thousands of people that are technically "temps" at Microsoft who have been there a significant amount of time. These people don't get any benefits, options, et cetera, yet Microsoft was keeping them employed for years at a time. Now, due to pending lawsuits they're laying off bunches of them for at least 100 days, as well as other things such as illegally marking files of people asking questions and such. Whether or not all of this is completely true, The Register's been on a rather remarkable run of being exactly right lately.