A Boy Named Tac

Just about everyone I know has one — a computer game handle they’ve been using since the dawn of time. This isn’t necessarily your online name — rather, it’s the name you use when you fire up a computer RPG for the first time, and need to name your character. Like in Zelda. Or TimeSplitters. … Read more

Reader Damns Consumerism, Christmas Trees

With my Thanksgiving editorial, I urged people to piss off a liberal and buy something on Black Friday. And amazingly enough, it worked! In an e-mail succinctly entitled Go To Hell Kenneth an irate reader took me to task for my editorial. The e-mail wasn’t signed, so I don’t know who wrote it (and to … Read more

Save the Children! Ban Video Games!

Nothing makes me more nauseous than cries for government intervention in order to “Save the Children”. The latest effort to promote an ever-more paternalistic government comes from California Democrat Joe Baca, who’s introduced legislation making it a crime to sell graphically violent or sexually explicit video games to kids without parental consent (as reported in … Read more

Of Deep Linking and Stupid Corporations

Wired.com did a story recently about deep linking, which is the practice of one site linking to a story, article or resource inside of another site (as I just did with the link to Wired). Such links bypass the site’s home page (and any advertising there) but are generally regarded by most web folks as … Read more

Message to 9/11 Hoaxers: The Truth Matters

I’m disgusted. Pissed off. Angry. Why? Because of an e-mail I received this week alleging that while American car companies have donated millions of dollars in money and equipment to disaster relief to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, foreign companies have failed to back up their sympathetic words with donations. It’s simply not true … Read more

Wake Up and Smell the Future, Redux

For some reason last month several readers responded to an editorial I wrote this time last year called “Wake Up And Smell The Future!” One asked if my demands for a high-tech future was a little too materialistic — focused too much on gizmos, and not enough on the Big Issues, like eliminating pollution, global … Read more