“Democrat Russ Feingold announced that he has decided not to run for President in 2008. Which finally answers the question no one asked.”
– Conan O’Brien

TOR Books and John Scalzi are offering free copies of The Ghost Brigades for active duty servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So: If you’re currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan and would like to receive an electronic edition of The Ghost Brigades to read and (hopefully) enjoy, all you have to do is send an e-mail from your .mil account to omw@scalzi.com and ask for it. As soon as I get your request, I’ll send you an .rtf document (about 584kb in size), which you can format as you please for whatever you read things on.

Your cost: not a thing. You’ve earned some recreational reading, I expect.

Amen to that. Pass this along to anyone you know who is currently serving.

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
– Isaac Asimov

I can admit it, I’m a Sony guy. I loved the first Playstation (even though I didn’t own one) and I purchased the PS2 as soon as I could afford it and actually find one in a store. Having come right out of college, I didn’t really think all that much about people having to wait in line to get one on launch day (as several of my roommates had to do, but came away successfully). I got a PSP the day it came out, and love it - I can play games, watch movies, store and listen to mp3s or movies, and even surf the internet wirelessly on it. The Xbox never really appealed to me, and the Gameboy and DS didn’t have the more complex games that I was looking for - or the capabilities to approach console graphics with their limited processing capabilities.

So when the PS3 was announced, I figured it was a no-brainer. Next-gen graphics, built in wi-fi, 100% backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games, you could even use the PSP as a remote for it! I was sold. The Cell processor at the PS3’s core promised a level of power unheard of in a console before. It was a no-brainer. I had never been a fan of the XBox, and other than the Halo games, there was little reason for me to get one. The Gamecube was fun, but not a serious contender and Nintendo had made some serious missteps with third-party support that caused most publishers to forget about even developing for it.

Then Sony started its dedicated mission towards alienating me along with millions of other gamers around the world.

First, the system was delayed from Fall 2005 to Spring of 2006. Spring came and went, and the system was pushed out to Fall of 2006. Not a huge deal, and it helped build the hype. Plus, that meant the price of its components could come down, and more units would be available! Then, at this year’s E3, the $600 price dropped on gamers’ heads like a ton of bricks. The last game system to cost that much was the ill-fated home version of the Neo-Geo, which sold like 100 copies in the US. Your average working family isn’t going to drop $1000 on a system, a couple of games, a memory card, and extra controllers for their 10 year old kid at Christmas (yes, there are the spoiled kids who WILL get one, but they are a minority). So we have a price point that’s absurd - and the $500 version is still overpriced for a stripped down version of the system that most people won’t want.

Next came the fact that Sony is trying to push yet ANOTHER media format - Blu-Ray, which promises to be the future of HD entertainment. When the PS2 came out, it was heralded as a great deal because it was a DVD player as well as a game system, and at the time DVDs represented a huge leap over VHS tapes in terms of quality and ease of production. Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD) are more of an incremental step, and also require you to have another few thousand dollars of home entertainment equipment to fully appreciate the image quality. True, the extra storage capability offers the potential for higher textures and better game mechanics and graphics, but not the major improvement that optical CDs or DVDs gave over cartridge-based game systems. That leap was a major one because - despite longer load times than those offered by cartridges - now games could have actual audio tracks as soundtracks as well as lots more content on the high-capacity discs. But what about Sony’s past forays into media formats? Looking down the list at Betamax, Minidisc, ATRAC (their version of the mp3) and UMD - the PSP’s format - the track record is a solid 0 for 4. While the PS3 is a good deal in terms of a BluRay player, is anyone willing to pay the higher prices for the system or the movies? Just two years ago, when the PSP was launched with its UMD format - movie studios jumped on it. Sony, in its infinite wisdom, charged more for a UMD than a DVD, and you got a small disc that you couldn’t watch at home on your TV and that included less content in terms of extras and bonus material than a DVD to boot. Why pay $20 for something you could only watch on a 3 inch screen in your lap? Needless to say, movie studios all got burned and jumped off that bandwagon, leaving Sony to try and continue to push UMDs as a viable movie format.

The BluRay player is the source of two core problems with the PS3. First, the high price is driven mainly by the BluRay drive. Sony is said to be losing $250-300 per system sold, despite the ludricrous shelf price. Secondly, production issues with the player have caused the number of systems available in the US at launch to be woefully low. Japan only got a measly 100,000 at their launch, and while America was supposed to get 400,000, the actual number was only 150,000-200,000 units. Europe’s launch in November was cancelled outright, and moved to next March. This means that not only is a huge part of the world left out in the cold, but the launch next spring means that systems will be just as hard to find in the US and Japan as they are right now for months to come because a launch has to be supported for an entire continent. I don’t expect to be able to walk into a store and just pick up a PS3 on a whim until mid-summer at the earliest, leaving the Xbox 360 with two solid holiday seasons under its belt and a 1.5 year head start.

Reports have also linked to major exclusive franchises for Sony being lost because of slow response times by Sony management to the 3rd party publishers’ requests. Game franchises like Grand Theft Auto and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed were originally planned to be Sony exclusives. However, because of Sony’s slow response in determining licensing and other management decisions, the publishers decided to release them on the Xbox 360 and PC as well. While Grand Theft Auto has been on the Xbox and PC in the past, Sony usually got a few month headstart over the other two systems, while Grand Theft Auto IV will be released on the Xbox 360 on the same day as the PS3. Now Sony has to rely on games like the forthcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 to go up against Xbox 360 titles like Gears of War and Halo 3 to sell systems - not exactly a sure thing. Even Square Enix, the maker of Final Fantasy, has announced that it will be spreading the love across all the consoles from now on - including the innovative Nintendo Wii.

The final straw for me personally was the announcement that the PSP would be able to play downloaded PS1 games. Sounds great, right? Now I could play favorites like the nigh-impossible to find Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid on the go. However, the catch is that you have to download the games to your PS3 first, and then transfer them to your PSP. Another kick in the crotch from Sony - forcing me to buy a console that I literally can’t even get for months.

What does this mean? Well, Sony is likely to lose a large chunk of their market dominance that they have enjoyed since the days of the first Playstation. Nintendo will recoup what it lost with the Gamecube and Microsoft will continue to make large strides towards becoming the leader in the US console wars. Because Sony’s overall electronics division is basically floundering at the moment and relying on the PS3 to keep them in the black, and taking the added pressure of trying to launch a new media format into the picture - the future is grim for the Playstation. It will still sell like mad, but if the production issues and continual bad decisions from Japan continue, Sony will have to start looking over its shoulder a lot more often and may likely find themselves neck in neck by the end of this generation with Microsoft.

What are you going to do?

Antigua has a problem with the United States. The U.S. has been using a 1961 law called The Wire Act to prevent Antiguans from offering certain services and goods to the United States that are legal domestically. Antigua has filed a complaint with the WTO, as this violates WTO rules regarding free trade. The US has ignored the WTO’s ruling in Antigua’s favor, which entitles Antigua to retaliate.

Now there aren’t many ways to retaliate economically against the United States. Antigua can’t seriously ban American imports or raise tariffs on American goods. But this little Caribbean nation has found a way to get at the US: Intellectual Property.

the country may refuse to enforce American patents and trademarks. This would make it possible for Antiguan-based companies to produce knock-offs of American intellectual property, like video and music recordings or computer software. Such a tactic would get the attention of major US firms like Microsoft Corp. and entertainment titan Time Warner Inc. It would also put tiny Antigua’s trade war against the United States on front pages around the world.

The real danger in this is two-fold. Antigua, with less than 80,000 people, might not have a major impact on Time Warner’s bottom line. But if the US refuses to play ball with the rest of the world, imagine what the consequences could be if other, larger countries stopped enforcing American intellectual property claims. Larger African countries or smaller European countries could be major problems for American IP exports from music and movies to electronic devices and agricultural products.

Such a conflict also has the potential to create even more tension in the Republican (and Democrat to a lesser extent) ranks: large businesses who specialize in intellectual properties like NBC Universal, Time Warner, Random House, and the like versus moral crusaders who regard gambling as a soul-rotting sin (Bill Bennett excluded, of course, as his credibility on such an issue is shot to Hell).

But incidents like this show how in a modern, interconnected world, the U.S. can’t afford to be a maverick nation economically. When we’re so reliant on things like recognition of our IP in countries that consume our media, we need to play ball with the international community. It’s too late to turn back to a protectionist kind of scheme that we could employ in yesteryear. The only way to keep our exports as valuable as they can be is to make sure other countries respect our intellectual property, and if that means we have to let them use their advantages to compete against our companies, so be it.

“This conversation is really funny to imagine. Sara is talking about the trust fund, and she says ‘You know what, Mr. Farr? I want you to be trustee. Also, I want to make sure that if you make a mistake or screw this up somehow, that you’re not personally liable for the consequences, so I want an exculpatory clause in the statement.’ Farr would respond ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to be liable? That might not be the best idea.’ ‘No, I’m sure I want you to be free of liability for your decision with regard to my trust.’ I can picture that conversation between a lawyer and client, can’t you?”

“Everywhere I go I hear ‘Dave, you’re probably gay. All those jokes about homosexuals you do, it’s like a fixation! Deep down, you probably secretly want to have sex with other men.’ And I answer back ‘Listen, voices in my head, quiet down! I’m trying to watch the Ice Capades!’”
– Dave Attell

Andrew Sullivan has a lovely quote from radio blowhard and whackjob conservative Michael Savage.

“And I want to tell you something, and I’m going to say it to you loud and clear. The radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this country. Make no mistake about it. They’re all not nice decorators. You better get it through your head before it’s too late. They threaten your very survival. They went after the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is now caving into the homosexual mafia. They will not stop until they force their agenda down your throats. Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda. Now, if you want that and if you don’t think it’s a threat — believe me, that is what’s going to occur in this country,”

Andrew and others around the blogosphere have expressed their horror at this statement, which I definitely concur with.

But here’s the thing–in light of recent events, I find myself less inclined to outrage, and more inclined to start a pool as to the date when Michael Savage will finally be outed. Just sayin…

“[R]easonable people know that mocking politically powerful, bigoted, sex-obsessed, deranged national figures is often the only weapon we have at our disposal.”
– Dan Savage

This weekend I caught an interview with author and inventor Ray Kurzweil. It was a long and winding talk that went over a lot of ground, but one small part caught me as particularly interesting. He was saying that at some point, machines will become so indistinguishable from humans in their intelligence and sentience that people will have to grant them “human” rights.

While machines are probably very far away from needing the full panoply of human rights, there is an intermediate legal paradigm that may be ethically necessarily far before full human rights: that of animal rights law.

Historically, before the twentieth century, animals were treated as automatons put on Earth for Man’s use and enjoyment and therefore had no purpose but to serve the wants and needs of people. As a result, cruel treatment of an animal, while it could be expensive and wasteful, wasn’t generally considered to be immoral per se. It wasn’t until the spread of Darwin’s ideas about the differentiation of man and animal that more people began to consider the idea that that animals feel emotions and pain. Scientific research into the nature of animal life in the 20th Century, especially primates, have further contributed to the spread of the idea that mistreatment of non-human animals immoral in and of itself.

With the changing social attitudes towards animal cruelty, animals gained certain statutory rights to deal with what people increasingly perceived as immoral and cruel treatment of animals, including inhumane slaughter techniques, abuse, neglect and similar acts. While animals still don’t, for better or worse, have certain human rights, such as citizenship or standing to sue in a court, the illegalization of cruelty to animals was certainly a significant step forward for the assertion that non-humans can have “rights”, even if they’re statutory and not constitutionally-grounded.

While some of the parallels between a possible future of sentient machines and the animal rights movement might be obvious, there are noteworthy differences. One of the barriers in convincing people to grant “human” rights to non-human animals is the communication barrier. If animals can’t tell us what they want, we can’t ever truly know the full extent of their wants, or even if they have wants as we understand the term. But computers can be made to communicate in human-understandable languages fairly easily, or at a minimum create a non-language-based visual display that a human can understand. So it should be easier to investigate a computer’s sentience than it would ever be to investigate a badger’s. Additionally, what constitutes inhumane treatment will change from computer to computer, causing people to interpret the problem more generally. A computer may not wish to turn off, fearing it as a kind of death. A sufficiently sentient computer may develop its own morality and conscience and refuse to perform certain tasks. A computer may develop its own desires and demand a chance to persue them. The speculation could go on forever.

The notion of treating a machine as human for all intents and purposes is probably a long ways away. Even as far back as a few decades ago our understanding of how the brain worked was at the bloodletting stage. Until we get a much better understanding on the inner workings of the human brain, there will be things humans can do that we’ll be unable to simulate with computers or other machines. But it’s entirely possible that before they reach a human level of intelligence, computers will begin to exhibit some traits that will make people regard certain kinds of behavior towards them as unethical or immoral. And as we’ve done in the past with animals, that will probably lead to the granting of limited statutory rights for these intelligent machines. And while the exact nature of these traits or their corresponding right may be hard to predict, advances in artificial intelligence may make that day come much sooner than people would expect.