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Archive for: ‘April 2011’

Oklahoma Legislature Hates Democracy

April 28, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

“All elections shall be free and equal.” – Oklahoma Constitution, Section III-5

Those words are found in our state’s constitution. Yet, our state legislature is not living up to that standard.

In 1974, the Legislative branch of Oklahoma decided they did not want competition in the Gubernatorial or Presidential elections from any person that was not a Republican or Democrat. They decided that they did not want any other parties rising up in Oklahoma to throw them out.

So they did what any fearful legislative body would do. They changed the laws to suit their own ends. They did this in two ways: First they wrote themselves into law. Second they put up extreme barriers for any other party. (more…)

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Tags: Ballot Access Reform, Representative Scott Martin, Senator Sykes
Categories: Politics and Law

The Sky Is Falling!

April 20, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

Every time the entertainment market shifts into new directions, the controlling powers scream about the death of their industry. Each time, they end up as nothing more than a Chicken Little.

You all know the story. A little chicken is sitting under an oak tree and an acorn falls and hits him on the head. He assumes he was hit with a piece of the sky and starts screaming “The sky is Falling!” to everyone he meets.

Eventually, he is found to be an idiot and everyone goes on their merry little way.

Today, we have two such Chicken Little stories posted on Gamasutra. In one you have Colleen Delzer claiming that $1 games are going to kill off their developers. In the other, you have Mike Capps claiming $1 games are going to kill the AAA developers. Both are nothing more than Chicken Little warnings.

When the TV came to the market, the movie industry claimed that it would be the death of movie theatres. Movie theatres are bigger now than ever. When Netflix started offering streaming video, they made they same claim and are still making it. The movie industry are setting box office records since then.

When the DVR came out, television studios claimed that it would end the serialized television show. We have more long running series now than ever. They are now complaining about Hulu and other streaming services claiming they will destroy the industry.

When iTunes was released the major labels screamed that they would die if songs were sold for a $1. They now sell more music than ever before. (more…)

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Tags: Chicken Little
Categories: Game Philosophy

Update: Progress on the Tulsa World’s New Pay Wall

April 19, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

I have made some progress on the Tulsa World’s new pay wall. I have been looking at this for a while. At first I thought they were doing something intelligent by require users to login and using server side sessions to determine if they load content or not.

This is not so.

Using the Web Developer addon for Firefox, I found that by disabling cookies, refreshing the page and re-enabling cookies I can read the articles when I am locked out. This is not an ideal solution, but it is a temporary fix.

I am still trying to get a toolbar bookmarklet functioning to make this a seamless process for anyone to use without having to use Firefox or install the Web Developer Addon. I just haven’t got the right commands going yet.

Javascript is not my strongest programming language, but I know enough to get this working, it will just take me some time.

Update: I have found the cookie that is responsible for displaying the content. It is named “MEYED” Deleting that cookie and refreshing the page provides the content, but there is still something on the page that forces a refresh and blocks the content again.

I have made some progress getting a bookmarklet working but right now it is not very useful. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week.

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Tags: Firefox, Tulsa World, Web Developer
Categories: Coding Doodles, Technology

Tulsa World Hates Their Customers

April 14, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

Not that I read their news much at all let alone online, the Tulsa World has decided to wage war on their readers by forcing a subscription in order to read more than 10 articles written by their staff in a 30 day period. They announced this subscription “service” (Warning: This announcement is written by a TW Staffer and if you have read more than 10 articles in the last 30 days, you cannot even read this) on March 31, 2011.

This come shortly after the New York Times announced pretty much the same thing, but they allow 20 articles a month for non subscribers. (more…)

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Tags: Pay Walls, Tulsa World
Categories: News, Technology

The Gopher and the Mole: A Modern Fable

April 13, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

The Gopher and The Mole

There once was a gopher and a mole who lived in a hole in the ground. It was a nice hole, provided them the comforts of food and shelter. A pleasant little hole that any burrowing animal would have loved to live in.

One day, the gopher looked around and decided that he was not satisfied with the size of the hole he lived in and began to dig a larger hole. Eventually the mole saw what the gopher was up to and decided that he wanted to increase the size of the hole as well.

Unfortunately, the mole did not agree with the gopher on exactly how they should be digging their hole. After all, they shared the hole and whatever decision one made the other had to live with as well. This disagreement caused much turmoil within the hole and both kept digging and digging.

Many years later, the gopher and the mole were looking at the much larger and deeper hole they had dug. Neither, was satisfied with the work of the other. Nor did they agree with the other on what course of action they should take. So they kept on digging. (more…)

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Tags: Democrats, Republicans
Categories: Politics and Law, Writings

N-Gage: Ahead of the Game

April 12, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

n-gage phone and game system I worked in an EB Games back in 2003 during the time the N-Gage was reaching its (very small) peak in the gamer consciousness.

We had one small end cap with the 10 or so games that we had in stock and a demo system available.

I only ever knew of one person who owned one and actually bought games for it. He would come in every few weeks and ask if we had any new games for it. We never did.

Despite its failings in the market, it was a novel innovation in portable gaming. It was a phone as well as a portable gaming systems. Its major flaws and the reason it was so panned by the gaming community as well as the phone buying community were the convoluted way you had to change out games and the way you held the phone to your ear. (more…)

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Tags: Apple, Google, N-Gage, Sony, Xperia
Categories: Game Chat, Game Philosophy

Accessibility: The Defining Feature of the Next Generation

April 12, 2011 Posted by E. Zachary Knight

The accessibility wave has begun, it is just a matter of the console companies continuing to ride it. The Wave started with Nintendo it will be driven by Nintendo and the other companies will ride in their shadow to the finish.

When most people talk about accessibility, they seem to conjure up images of simplified, or dumbed down, gameplay. What they don’t really understand is that accessibility is about making something approachable by someone not familiar with it while still leaving the ability for aficionados can master it.

Take the game of Chess. The rules are pretty simple. Every type of piece moves in its own way and the goal is to position the opposing player’s king in so much that they cannot make a move without leaving their king vulnerable. Simple enough that a kid can learn to play it. Yet at the same time entire clubs of aficionados have risen up and we have world wide Chess championships.

This is an example of accessibility in game design that we can currently fulfill but is not the focus of my arguments. I am talking about accessibility of technology. (more…)