Adam Engelhart

Another Bad Law Pun

A recent story in the Chronicle covered the State Controller’s Office’s effort to get Californians to pick up their unclaimed property held by the state, said property amounting to 4.8 billion dollars at last count. (Yes–"billion" with a "G".) You can look for your unclaimed property at searchthevault.com.

Sadly, I do not think the controller’s office will use the slogan I invented for the campaign: "We’d Like to Get You Between the Escheats."

Tags: pun, puns.

Add comment October 28th, 2005

Huis Clos

Huis Clos

Originally uploaded by tellumo.

I finally found this picture from my trip to Japan. The phrase “there are no exits” is a slightly inadequate Japanese translation–I’m not sure of exactly what the Japanese text says, but if it’s what I think it is, a closer analog would be “no exits are available.”

1 comment October 27th, 2005

Betty Goes Goth

Funny, I always figured Veronica would be more likely to do that. Not as awesome as The Punisher Meets Archie, but close.

Via BoingBoing. Tags: comics

Add comment October 27th, 2005

Best Song Request Ever!

My friend Kashena sent the Decemberists a nifty letter with a song request and an awesome rationale. Hooray for Kashena!

Add comment October 26th, 2005

Video Game Speed Demos

I forget where I got the link, but the Speed Demos Archive is pretty amazing. Because I am old-skool, the first game I checked out was Super Mario Brothers . . . for which the best time is 5:09. Five minutes, nine seconds. The guy avoids doom by one pixel more times than I can count; I was getting nervous just watching it.

More speed runs are available at the Internet Archive.

Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever finished SMB1 . . .

tags: video games

Add comment October 24th, 2005

Hardware

Searching Google Local for "hardware" in San Francisco is difficult, because you never know whether these places are selling hardware or hardware.

1 comment October 24th, 2005

Video-game lawyering

While Penny Arcade isn’t really my thing (I’m not a gamer), I find it reliably funny and occasionally sidesplitting. A couple of items in today’s news post really caught my eye, though.

First, Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS. Wright is "the rookie defense lawyer new to the scene with the wildest cross-examination skills in town!", per Capcom’s web site. (He also has a bad case of Final Fantasy hair, but that’s a different issue.) Gamespot’s review seems to give a pretty complete look at what it’s like. For my part, I think I’d find the legal inaccuracies too distracting, but I can see the appeal, and would definitely rent a copy if I owned a DS.

Also in the news post, well-documented annoyance Jack Thompson has apparently offered to donate $10,000 if someone makes a video game based on his premise of a vengance-crazed rampage against the video game industry. According to Wikipedia, an extant GTA: San Andreas mod comes surprisingly close to the mark. As for Thompson, Gabe criticized him on the grounds that the Penny Arcade-affiliated charity Child’s Play has donated well over thirty times Thompson’s proposed contribution, all through the efforts of gamers. Gabe described Thompson’s response as “scream[ing],” which doesn’t do much for Thompson’s image as a voice of reason–not that that was too well-established to begin with.

2 comments October 12th, 2005

Old news?

The headline “Allegations of Vikings sexual misconduct aboard boats” is somewhat puzzling, until you realize that it’s not talking about the Vikings, but the Vikings.

1 comment October 11th, 2005

Placepiece

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

–Arthur C. Clarke

Gizmodo linked to this article about a clock inspired by the Weasleys’ familial-position indicator from the Harry Potter books. While the device in its current form is almost pure whimsy (I personally hope there’s some way for J. K. Rowling to block its manufacture unless they include “mortal peril” at the 12 o’clock position), Gizmodo’s treatment raises the central technology-and-culture issue: if technology changes such that it’s possible to verify things that we couldn’t before, should we necessarily do so, or is this “leakage” necessary for a healthy society?

Of course, this is far too much to cover in one blog post composed between Property and Civ Pro, but I’m going to point out that this is part of what made me leave the technology field. The problem of Pandora’s box got too disturbing, and I wasn’t sure I could help the good guys win. The whole truth is much more complicated, but I feel a lot more at peace in the world of law.

Add comment October 11th, 2005

Sim Games Have Gone Too Far

So it’s Nobel Prize season, and while the Ig Nobels are wonderfully entertaining, I find the games on the Nobel website yet more improbably awesome. For example, how would you like to manage a POW camp?

If I were making the game, I’d put in some way you could consult your spiritual advisor by typing WWJD, WWMGD, or WWCKD.

Add comment October 10th, 2005