LOL! Good satire.

] 1995: Real Audio released, allowing users to listen to halting
] bursts of static in real time.

] 1996: Parenting groups become concerned that spending extended time online
] is depriving children of important time spent watching television.

] [early] 1997: Internet introduced to businesses. Worker productivity up 35%.
] [mid] 1997: Internet porn introduced to businesses. Worker productivity down 97%

The Lemon: History Of The Internet

] This VisualRoute Server provides a graphical traceroute
] from this server to any other network device you choose,
] useful for pinpointing network connectivity problems and
] identifying IP addresses. To trace back to your computer,
] just press the button with your IP address below. To
] trace to any other network device, enter the host name or
] URL below and press Enter.

Requires Java. Watch a visual trace route appear, overlaid against a map of the world, as it runs a tracert to far away domains (for example, try bbc.co.uk for England, or yellowpages.com.au for Australia).

Visual Trace Route

My favorite of the reality shows (especially since they often visit areas that I've traveled around the world).

] The fourth edition of the show will make its debut with a
] 90-minute episode at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, May 29, settling
] into the timeslot occupied by "Survivor" during the
] regular season. As before, 12 teams of two people will
] race around the world, competing for a $1 million prize.
] The last team to reach each interim destination is
] eliminated.

Other "Amazing Race" info (such as about previous seasons) here:

 http://www.sirlinksalot.net/amazingrace.html

'Amazing Race 4' debuts on May 29th

] Perl experts were astounded by the results. "I was
] amazed that none of the students were able to read this
] simple sentence:
]
] $_='while(read STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if((@a=unx"C*",$_)
] [20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a [--$h 84])}
] @ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4]) . . .

LOL!

99.99% of High School Seniors Can't Read Perl

] VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations nuclear
] watchdog agency warned Monday that a nuclear
] contamination emergency may be developing in Iraq and
] appealed to the United States to let his experts back
] into the country.

More reports have been coming in about deaths and radiation poisoning near Tuwaitha in Iraq. I agree, that the area needs international attention, and it needs it immediately.

Reuters: El Baradei Warns of Iraq Nuclear Emergency

This page has links to the 15 or so Jupiter Research Analysts who are now maintaining weblogs. I heard about this through Michael Gartenberg, Jupiter Media's Research Director for Client Access and Technologies, who gave a very interesting "hard data" talk at E-3 about game industry demographics. I'm glad to see that along with "talking the talk", he's also "walking the walk" in the blogosphere!

Jupiter Research Analyst Weblogs

] Going into The Matrix: Reloaded, I wasn't worried if the
] fight scenes or special effects would measure up to the
] first film - it was the metaphysics that bothered me.

Good -- a reviewer who, like me, was more interested in the philosophy of the movie than the fight sequences! I think he's reading quite a bit more into it than was actually there, but then again, the vagueness of some of the references is part of why the Matrix was so fascinating to begin with!

The Matrix Reloaded: A Philosopher's Review

] TUWAITHA, Iraq (CNN) -- Villagers near Iraq's largest
] nuclear research facility complain that they are falling
] ill from what doctors say may be radiation poisoning.
]
] The research facility, which stores nonweapons-grade
] radioactive materials, was looted in the final days of
] the Iraq war. Many containers were stolen and used by
] residents near the Tuwaitha complex to store drinking
] water, among other things.

More information on the cases of acute radiation poisoning near the looted Tuwaitha facility. And *still* the U.N. inspectors (who are the only ones with exact info on what was stored there) are not being allowed in by the U.S. Army??

CNN.com - Iraqis complain of illness near nuclear facility

Pictures of E-3, taken by a friend of mine from St. Louis (Trevor) who also attended the show. He seems to have concentrated a great deal of attention on pics of the booth bimbos, but there are at least a few non-bimbo E-3 pictures on the page. ;)

He's also posted a "Day 2" set of pictures, which are viewable here:
 http://www.retroroots.com/e32003/e3_2003day2.htm

E3 2003 Day 1

Okay, here's my final meme-blog on E-3 2003, now that the show is over and my ears have stopped ringing (at least somewhat). And as usual, my caveat to my game industry colleagues: I am not official press -- this is just my own stream of thought rambling, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt. (Part 1 of my E-3 report, btw, is here: http://www.memestreams.net/users/elonka/blogid2927350 )

First, to get it out of the way, here's some more name-dropping about other colleagues that I ran across over the last couple days. The famous, not-so-famous, or just plain cool: Dave Perry (Shiny/Matrix), Richard Garfield (Magic), Johnny Wilson, John de Margheriti (MicroForte Australia), Marc Mencher, Alexander Macris (Themis), Rob Nicholls (Cybiko), Liz Wakefield (IGDA), Christopher Allen (Skotos), Bridget Goldstein, Daniel Greenberg, Patricia Pizer (Ubi Soft), Michael Gartenberg (Jupiter), and Tim Innes (S2 Games).

Now, getting back to the show floor . . . In terms of the major MMORPGs, many of the ones that were touted as being "in development" last year, are now in the process of being released, or are at a state where they can at least be demoed at these shows. I saw demos of Star Wars: Galaxies (Sony), Second Life (Linden Labs), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Square Enix), Mu Online (claiming to be the largest MMORPG in the world, with over 350,000 simultaneous players at peak), Myst Online, and several others. There was quite a bit of discussion about the difficulty of porting the hit games from one continent to another. For example, the Korean market has the largest games in the world in terms of Peak Simultaneous Users, but none of those games has yet caught on in the U.S. or European markets. Ditto with the U.S. games into the Asian markets. But one American game, Dark Age of Camelot, did manage to make the crossover from the U.S. to Europe, and is a big hit there, even reportedly being the #1 MMORPG in Europe. They're currently claiming 220,000 total subscribers (worldwide) with 60,000 PSU (Peak Simultaneous Users).

Factoid: Sony's EverQuest is stating that 16% of their userbase is female. In terms of gaining new users (of both genders), EQ says that 70% of their new customers are there because of a peer recommendation. They also said that at the EverQuest "Fan Faires", 80% of the attendees are players of the game.

A representative from EA had an interesting comment on their marketing focus. They said that they're finding they need to target the "game expert" in each community's circle of friends. In other words, that most game players around the country base their game-buying decisions not on marketing or even on magazine reviews, but on the recommendation of some member of their circle of friends (EA calls this person "Sydney") who's the guy or girl who plays nearly every game out there, and then recommends games to their friends. So if EA can successfully convince the "Sydneys" out there th... [ Read More (1.3k in body) ]