Blob Munchers.

I have a bunch of half-finished blog entries needing more work. But here's a quickie (yeah, right) I have been meaning to add for a while.

During my lack-of-tenure, I did a lot of stuff on my computer. For the vaguely interested, or those who don't skim like Brad, it's a 2GHz iMac G5 20" running OS X "Tiger", and was a confirmed purchase about 4 hours before I got laid off. I almost sent it back in a cash-flow panic, but as my wife rightly pointed out, I would have gone crazy without it.

I realized recently that I never touched the Playstation once during that whole free time period (in fact, haven't for months, since Star Wars Lego turned up for my birthday!). This is good, because it is summer, but I still played a lot of one computer game, on my Mac nonetheless. Which game? Pacman. I kid you not. A simple, free Tiger widget version. Great 10 minute mind-invigorator. I just want a quick game these days, no lifetime commitment!

My favourite Pacman story? That it was originally to be called Puck-man by its creator, and indeed made a lot more sense (cause he looks like a hockey puck), but some smart soul worked out that this was too easy to deface on the arcade cabinet. All a kid needed was a scratching device, and 5-seconds with the letter "P". And as I recall the arcades of my youth (everyday after school, and for a year there, before school also!), (s)he was right.

Anyhow, it seems the free widget is now no longer because Namco said the author had to cease and desist. What a crock. If Namco were competing for the free-widget market, I would almost (not really) understand.

How did we let bloody lawyers start stifling so much that is harmless and making no one any money? And what irony that they do it by treating everything — EVERY.LITTLE.THING — as so horribly not-harmless. every minor case is a most despicable, democracy killing, capitalism stifling, constitutional right breaking, deadly serious issue, usually of negligence or indifference. Yeah the bloody coffee is hot! You didn't order an iced coffee dickbrain, so don't pour it on your pants!

My assumption here, with no research whatsover, is that Namco did this to show active copyright protection, regardless of whether they think there is any harm to them as a money-making entity or not. Which judge is responsible for deciding that if you don't actively show yourself as protecting your copyrights, then you may rightfully lose them? Didn't anyone realize this was just lawyers working out one more way to never run out of work?

This started the corporate trend of harassing young web designers and fledgling programmers about the content, graphics, or free games (or dream-card images) on their 100 hits a month website. Whew. The world is a safer place.