Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Microsoft’s unwillingness or inability to fix a flaw in their lightweight jet database engine has resulted in a virus that can completely take control of your system. The worst part of this is that Microsoft was given plenty of warning, but chose to ignore the danger. The fact that this one seems to spread slowly will be little comfort to those who lose control of their systems to botnets.

This time, doctors are using games to help diagnose asthma in young children. No jokes here. Anything that can be used to improve the life of a sick two-year-old is OK in my book.

The coolest place in London is the Absolut Icebar, which is made entirely of imported Scandanavian ice. And when they say entirely, they mean it. Even the drink glasses are carved from imported ice. The whole place is kept at a temperature just below freezing to maintain it’s chilly furnishings.

There are lots of cheap jokes about cold that you could throw at this story, but I won’t. Hell will freeze over first.

According to an article from GamesIndustry.biz, handheld developer Gizmondo’s recently released financial report has a lot of questionable charges on it. Some of the highlights include: $170,000 paid to Gizmondo Europe director Carl Freer’s wife for marketing services and an introduction to the performer Sting. $150,000 in base salary, $80,000 in bonus and a $70,000 luxury car to the corporate secretary of Gizmondo Europe, who just happens to be the live-in partner of the director of Gizmondo (according to GamesIndustry.biz). Looks by all signs that the Gizmondo business model is the same as the dot.coms of the 90s. If you are interested in purchasing shares in Gizmondo you should be able to soon. Gizmondo’s parent company Tiger Telematics has filed for a listing on NASDAQ.

Microsoft released Office 2003 SP2 yesterday. Download it now to remove all of those annoying old bugs and replace them with new and improved bugs.

YES!! I knew it! It looks like Psychologists are beginning to prescribe video game therapy to patients with ADD. It’s about time that the medical community gave up on their crusade against our favorite cultural phenomenon. This shows that some shrinks actually research their work, instead of just “feeling your pain".

So… If video games help to control ADD, I guess we have our explanation for Jack Thompson.

A couple of Japanese scientists have managed to photograph a live Architeuthis, or Giant Squid. Until now, the only things we knew about these monsters came from finding washed-up carcasses. It’s kinda amazing that a monster that can grow to nearly 60 feet long has managed to avoid us for so long. I guess the fact that they live a half-mile deep in the ocean helped them a little.

According to Wikipedia, Gabe and noted Sci-Fi author Harlan Ellison got in a bit of a verbal altercation this weekend at Fools Cap VII. According to Gabe, Harlan Ellison started it when he refused to wear a jester cap by responding with a less then polite comment. So far Harlan has not responded but his website board is alive with commentary about the fight including posts from Gabe and the con chair of Fools Cap VII.

Sorry for the delay I was out sick yesterday. Due to time constraints I am going be posting the list without comments.

Here is the list:

Backyard Football for the Playstation 2
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport for the PC
Big Mutha Truckers for Gameboy Advanvce and Nintendo DS
Blitzkrieg 2 for the PC
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2006 for the PC.
Capcom Classics Collection for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Cold War for the XBox and PC.
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 for the Playstation 2.
Dragonshard for the PC.
Far Cry Instincts for the XBox.
Firefighter Command: Raging Inferno for the PC: Can not help myself but this is the first firefighting RTS I have ever heard off.
Frogger: Ancient Shadow for XBox, Playstation 2 and Gamecube.
Heroes of the Pacific for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC.
Indigo Prophecy for the XBox, Playstation 2 and PC.
Lost in Blue for the Nintendo DS.
Lunar: Dragon Saga for the Nintendo DS: Finnally after 10 long years a new Lunar game.
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the PSP.
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the XBox and Playstation 2.
NBA 2K6 for the XBox and Playstation 2.
NBA Live 06 for the XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PC.
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker for the PC.
No Surrender: Battle of the Bulge for the PC.
NTRA Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Pac-Man World 2 for the Gameboy Advance.
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness for the Gamecube.
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves for the Playstation 2 and now in full 3D.
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the XBox and PC.
The Suffering: Ties That Bind for the XBox, Playstation 2 and PC
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for the PSP.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown for the Gamecube.
Top Spin for the Playstation 2
Total Overdose: A Gunslinger’s Tale in Mexico for the XBox, Playstation 2, and PC.
Trace Memory for the Nintendo DS
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit for the XBox and Playstation 2.

Lots and lots of games this week to pick from. My pick is Lunar: Dragon Saga since I have waited 10 years for this game. If you would like to add commentary to the above please post it in the comment section. I would love to hear your pick for the week.

Blue’s News has posted a bunch of links to the new Call of Duty 2 demo. I’ll be downloading this one ASAP.

Well, yes and no… read on for details.

I ran into a couple of reviews you might be interested in. The first is FiringSquad.com’s review of Crossfire technology and the second is ExtremeTech’s comparison of SLI and Crossfire. Both articles provide benchmarks using some reference hardware supplied by ATI. Both articles come to the same conclusion… wait a while.

Though Crossfire will certainly improve your framerate when compared to a single ATI card, the performance isn’t that much better than a single 7800GTX. This isn’t surprising, since the X850 is a generation older than the 7800. It’s best to wait until you see what ATI’s new R5xx chips are capable of.

The first generation of Crossfire also has a limitation imposed on it by the single DVI channel that it uses to share video between the two cards. Though I’m certain that this won’t get in the way of most people, it’s bad news for anyone who wants to “future proof” their machine.

So… Too little? Well, we really won’t know until we see how the R5xx plays with Crossfire. Too late? Yep. About a year.

Update:
AnandTech has a list of recent Crossfire reviews that you can browse at your leisure. No sense reprinting them all here.

I ran across this hands-on preview of Call of Duty 2 at FiringSquad.com. It looks to me like a lot more of the same thing that Call of Duty 1 was. I was a little disturbed by the fact that they removed vehicles from the multiplayer game. I just loved blowing up my buddies with a shot from a tank.

According to Amazon.com and EBGames, Call of Duty 2 will be available on Oct 25th. I hope they put the vehicles back in by then.

Activision has announced today that it is raising the wholesale price for their next generation games by $10. That change will bring the wholesale price of Activision games to over $50. This hike will bring games to $60 to $65, depending on if the retailers plan to boost profit margins by $5. Right now only Activision has announced price increases, but expect all of the major players to follow suit and announce hikes soon too.

FiringSquad.com has a hands-on preview of Quake 4. My first online shooter was the original Quake, so I’m looking forward to the release of this one. I still haven’t found a good, reliable date for the release. If anyone knows what it is, please post it.

Update :
EBGames claims that Quake4 will ship on Oct 11.

Want to know who to blame for your deluge of spam? According to TechWorld, London is the zombie capital of the world, and the UK is the most infected country. So the next time that you feel like complaining about all of the garbage in your inbox, just console yourself with the fact that much of it is imported from Britain.

I’m guessing the BOFH had a lot to do with this

Hang on to your hats, folks. Someone has released a worm that presents fake search results if you mis-type www.google.com. The worm itself doesn’t seem to harm the machine or OS. It’s only purpose is to put a few bogus entries on the first page of results.

Even though this one seems kinda clever and innocuous, the guy who came up with it should still be stomped into oblivion. I don’t know of anyone who wants an outside party messing with their hosts file and intercepting web searches. Also… as anyone whos has been hit by a worm knows, these things usually commandeer a large percentage of available badnwidth for spreading the disease. The innocuous ones always seem to mutate into something nastier, too.

Another week another upcoming game list:

Battalion Wars for the Gamecube: Advance War for the Gameboy moves onto the Game cube with killer 3D graphics.

Big Mutha Truckers for the Gamecube and Gameboy Advance: Big truck racing with a heavy Redneck feel to it.

D.I.C.E. for the Playstation 2: Game based on a popular kid’s anime show.

DK: King of Swing for the Gameboy Advance: Puzzle game staring everyones favorite Nintendo mascot Donkey Kong.

DragonShard for the PC: D&D RTS, Shameless this is more up you alley any ideas if it is any good?

DT Racer for the Playstation 2: Budget demolition racing game.

Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC: The XBox RPG remixed and released for the PC.

Frantix for the PSP: Average puzzler for the PSP.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for the Playstation 2: Feudal Japanese adventure game based on the 11th century classic Japanese tale , Tale of Genji

Gretzky NHL ‘06 for the Playstation 2: Delayed from a few weeks the next game in the Gretzky hockey games.

Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC: Next Hoyle collection of the casino games.

Indigo Prophecy for the Playstation 2, PC, and XBox: Someone is killed people in bizarre methods and you are the detective assigned to solve why.

Legend of Kay for the Playstation 2: Wow I never thought this would make it to the states. Imagine the classic fighting Legend of Kai but instead of humans change them to cats. Yup another quirky Japanese game.

Madden NFL 06 for the PSP: Why is the PSP getting the shaft even in Madden games? All the other version came out a month ago.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the Playstation 2, XBox, and Gamecube: Fighting game staring Marvel’s superheroes and EA’s made up character for this game since they did not have any.

Myst V: End of Ages for the PC: Another Myst game, hopefully the puzzles are easier then the last one.

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary for the PC: Collection of 26 classic Namco arcade games.

Ninja Gaiden Black for the XBox: Ninja Gaiden remixed with a couple adds, that you can also download if you own the original, at a budget price.

RPG Maker 3 for the Playstation 2: The third toolset to make 3-D RPG games from the classic Maker series.

Tak: The Great Juju Challenge for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, XBox, Nintendo DS, and Gameboy Advance: Third game in the popular kid game series.

The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree for the Gameboy Advance: Cute kid game based on the classic Berenstain Bears book “The Spooky Old Tree".

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for the XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PC: The next release in the Tiger Woods series.

Ultimate Spider-Man for the Xbox, Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC, Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS: Ultimate was a re visioning of the Marvel universe a few years ago that basically the same as what happened to DC comics in the 1960s with the start of the Silver age and the whole Earth-2 thing. Well unlike the 60s we have video games and this one is the first game but most likely not the last in a long line of games based on Marvel’s Ultimate universe.

We Love Katamari for the Playstation 2: The sequel to the classic Katamari Darcy. This time for the non-budget price of $30 and well worth it.

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for the PC, XBox, Gamecube, Playstation 2: The sequel to last years classic X-Men RPG game X-Men Legends. For all you X-Men fans this is a must buy.

Wow this week is a huge for all you comic book loving fans with not one but three games to choose for but I have to the game of week nods to: We Love Katamari. Still lots and lots of games to pick from my wallet is going to hate this week.

Better late than never… ATI has announced a new X800 GTO chip that looks a lot like the X800 Pro with higher memory bandwidth. Or was that a lot like the x800GT with more pipelines? Or was that a stub of the X800 PE? How is it different from the other X800’s? I’m So Confused!

But seriously… The PC gaming enthusiast community, has been driven to wild fits of yawning. Nobody is going to pay any attention to another X800 launch with the R520 release only a few weeks away.

ATI’s models may be confusing, but you can’t accuse them of limiting your choices. Unfortunately, it is easy to choose one card thinking that it is another, pushing you into a purchase that you didn’t want. Though I understand that they want to hit all of the different segments of the market, ATI should try to come up with a better way to distinguish between models than to add a meaningless character or two to a shared name.

I have a X800 Pro, and I no longer have any idea how it compares to the other models. The sheer number of cards that are * kinda * like it can make performance charts impossible to read. I guess I won’t worry about it until I need to buy another card in a couple of years.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata unvieled the much debated Revolution controller today at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. Contrary to all the rumors, it looks nothing like a traditional video game controller. It looks more like a TV remote control and is designed to work like a mouse that you control by moving through the air. The controller also allows the user to plug in attachments like an analogue controller and a dance mat. Nintendo chose this design over traditional controller design so that it would be more accepted by mainstream audiences. Iwata, during this lecture, also hyped up the success of it’s portable games, like Nintendogs and Brain games, in Japan with woman and casual older games. Iwata plans to take that success and repeat it on the home console with the Revolution.

The ESRB has ordered games publishers to reveal all hidden content in all games published in the last year. This is obviously in response to the “hot coffee” mod found in GTA: San Andreas earlier this year. The deadline for disclosure is Jan 9, 2006.

Go get ‘em ESRB! Rockstar should have been much more severely punished than they were. It’s one thing to release adults-only content that is clearly marked as such. It is quite another to hide it in a product that claims not to have AO content.

This isn’t exactly news, but it looks like video gaming is getting more and more respectable by the day. When you see articles like this one appear on the AP wire, and you find out that non-technical companies are starting to sponsor tournaments, you can bet that the big media won’t be able to ignore it for long.

I’m not sure what all of this respectability will bring. I really don’t think I would want to watch a StarCraft tournament. Despite the fact that I love playing the game, I really have very little desire to watch someone else play.

In the wake of the South Korean man who died of excessive StarCraft, some Asian countries are attempting to restrict online game playing. So far, the restrictions are very light, and seem to be more of an attempt to appear as if they are doing something. I would, however, expect much more insane attempts as ultra-conservatives begin to notice the problem.

It was interesting to see that anyone who spends more than 20 hours per month in online games is considered “hard core". Considering that this averages out to around 40 minutes per day, I guess that I can easily be called a “hard core” gamer. I also spend about 90 minutes per day driving back and forth to work, so I’m also a hard-core driver. I guess I shouldn’t mention that I’m also a “hard core” sleeper and eater as well.

Seems like someone decided to set the bar for “hard core” pretty low.

Extremetech has this comparison of XP64 and XP32 on a dual core Athlon. As expected, running 64-bit versions of games really has very little impact on performance. The interesting thing to note is that running 32-bit apps on a 64-bit version of Windows doesn’t seem to hurt performance.

The author’s conclusions about it being best for most people to wait for Vista before changing over to 64-bit is dead-on. It’s also the obvious answer for anyone with a single core 64-bit system too.

In a stunning attempt to free the poor Chinese people from “weird sounding foreign names", the government of the city of Kunming, China is forcing developers to have the names of their developments approved by officials. Can you imagine something like that happening in the US? Can you imagine how many places will end up with signs that read “Welcome to unnamed Shopping Mall, in the heart of Downtown censored“.

Oops… I bet ShamelessGeeks will now be put on the list of undesirable sites by the Chinese government. It was inevitable anyway. We, after all, have one of the weirdest sounding foreign names on the Internet.

Sorry for the delay but I had some personal things to take care of Friday. Onto the list of new upcoming releases for this week:

Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt for the Gamecube: The newest latest greatest budget Animaniac game now for the Gamecube.

Armored Core: Nine Breaker for the Playstation 2: The next game in one of the longest running mech games also maybe one of the last in the series.

Battleground Europe: World War II Online for the PC: A blast, excuse me, failure from the past returns to the PC. WWII Online was one of the first MMORPG and it flopped big time due to the buggy code and the fact that there is a little game called Battlefield: 1942 and Call of Duty that does the same thing for free.

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory for the PC: Relive World War II air combat action for the hundredth time with this WWII flying simulator.

Burnout Legends for the PSP: Burnout 3 was the sleeper hit of last year with all the neat Takedown action. This year Burnout returns to small screen with more Takedown action and maybe one of the first game to justify buying the PSP.

Burnout Revenge for the XBox and Playstation 2: Take what I said above and add now with more takedown action for the big screen.

Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures 2006 for the XBox and Playstation 2: I can understand why people would want a new football, soccer, baseball game or hockey game ever year. But why the hell do they want a new hunting game ever year?

Dynasty Warriors 5 for the XBox: Save your money and buy Dynasty Warrior 4 it’s basically the same game.

Evil Dead: Regeneration for the XBox and Playstation 2: Bruce Campbell has been one busy boy lately with his new movie and comic book “The Man with the Screaming Brian” but somehow he found time in his busy schedule to voice Ash in this newest Evil Dead game. If that is not a good enough reason to run out and buy this game then the low budget price of $20.00 should make this a must buy.

EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow for the PC: For the 10 die hards who refuse to play World of Warcraft or EQII comes the 100th expansion for EverQuest.

EverQuest II: Desert of Flames for the PC: For the other 15 non World of Warcraft addicts comes the latest expansion for EQII.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children UMD for the PSP: Okay I know this is not a game but for some odd reason all the anime fanboys have drooling to get their grubby paws on it. Then again maybe it is a game since all Final Fantasy is one giant cut scene with a few button presses.

GripShift for the PSP: Some things like Peanut Butter and Chocolate belong together other things like cats and dogs do not. GripShift sets to prove that just maybe driving and puzzle games belong together or not.

Lego Bionicle: Maze of Shadows for the Nintendo DS: For our two 12 year old male readers they released another game for you, enjoy.

MediEvil Resurrection for PSP: Take a cult classic for the Playstation toss in um nothing. Port it to PSP and you get MediEvil Resurrection. If you really, really want to play MediEvil you can get the Playstation game and a PSOne for the same price as the PSP version of the game.

NHRA Championship Drag Racing for the Playstation 2: Okay this was one game I thought would never make the delay list but it has for the 3 week running.

Scooby-Doo! Unmasked for the XBox, Gamecube, Playstation 2, and Gameboy Advance: The next groovy installment in the popular kid franchise Scooby-Doo. Hopefully this time they pull the mask of the Mystery Van and reveal what really happens inside the mystery van when the cameras are not looking.

Tecmo Classic Arcade for the XBox: A collection of bunch of Tecmo Arcade games that I have never heard of and hold your applause: Temco Bowl. Okay actually I did misspeak it will also have Rygar and Swimmer.

The Sims 2 Nightlife for the PC: The next expansion for Sims 2. This time you can take Ken and Barbie out on the town.

World Series of Poker for the Playstation 2, XBox and PSP: Here is your chance to go all in at Harrah’s Rio Casino during WSOP without having to lay down $10,000 for that pleasure.

A lot of games this week. Making this weeks pick a real tough one but I am going for the classic since I wasted a lot of college free time playing it. The game of the week is: Temco Bowl and couple of other forgotten Tecmo Arcade games.

A friend just pointed out a recruitment letter from Microsoft to Eric Raymond. For those of you who forgot who Eric is, he’s the guy who wrote one of the most anti-Microsoft publications: the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric could have been a lot more professional about his response. The letter shows how little you have to know about your market to be a recruiter, not some twisted Microsoft plot (though they probably have plenty of those too).

I’m sure that everyone in the computer biz has horror stories about stupid recruiters. I have personally been recruited for my own job twice. Both times were within a week of giving notice. I’ve also had a recruiter hand me a stack of resumes from AI experts, even though the job description was Electronics Technician. The recruiter’s response to my complaint was “same thing, right?”

I’d love to hear any stories you have about clueless recruiters. Who knows… Maybe Shameless will write an opinion column.

Shameless has posted a list of video games that will never be released that he gathered from several of the worlds foremost experts on gaming. Ok… So they were really just a few of his gaming buddies, but it’s still a good list. This one will find a permanent home on the Shameless page.

A University of Pennsylvania professor has developed a backpack frame that generates electricity from walking. As stated in the article, the device uses very little additional energy, but generates only a few watts of power.

If they could learn how to harness the power of snoring, I’d be a major energy supplier for this country.

Well, probably not. Human Pacman may seem like a simple concept, but it requires quite a bit of high-tech equipment to actually play the game, and it seems like carrying all of that equipment around city streets would get old fast.

Slate has posted an article about two Thirtysomethings’ first adventures on XBox Live and Halo 2. The article was mostly a fluff piece about their misadventures and how much they suck at online gaming. For some odd reason I have a feeling that if Shameless and I played XBox Live for the first time (disclaimer: Shameless does not have an XBox and I can not stand all the potty mouths on XBox Live) our article would sound a lot like theirs.

Google has added a button to the map of New Orleans that allows you to toggle between pre and post Katrina maps. All you need to do is follow the previous link and click back and forth between the buttons labeled “Satellite” and “Katrina". It does a good job of illustrating just how devastating the flood was. Thanks to TheRegister.com for the heads up.

It isn’t all that often that a dispute between tech companies makes national news, but that’s just what is beginning to happen with the AMD vs. Intel lawsuit. Analysts are starting tolook closely at Intel’s business practices and wonder if they are illegal, and if not, whether they should be.

I don’t know if AMD will be able to prove illegal activity, but they have certainly proved that there are too many easy ways around the anti-trust laws in this country. Can it be that MS and Intel will re-create the business environment of the industrial revolution? I certainly hope not.

In a slight twist of morals, the Yusufali-A trojan monitors a user’s web traffic and replaces porn with Koran messages. If the user continues to view objectionable material, he gets logged out.

Y’know… there is a really good joke hiding in that last paragraph. I’m just too dimwitted to see it right now.

Microsoft has taken a legal swing at the European commission by filing a new lawsuit. In it, Megabucks… er… Microsoft is trying to fight the order to provide broad licenses for their communications protocol source code.

I’m unsure why either side is considering this a problem. If the protocol specifications are released, and Microsoft is held to their own specs, why is the source code necessary?

I understand that a monopoly must be held to different rules, and I sympathize with those who believe that Microsoft has abused IP laws to the detriment of the entire world. But… I fail to see why the open-source community doesn’t just write their own source code in this case.

Website Simply Fired was holding an Internet contest for the most offbeat reason for being fired. The winner was a guy who ate two pieces of someone else’s pizza and was fired a month later when the pizza owner complained. Other runners up include a guy who could not drive, moving men who had a sword fight with a customers adult toys and a guy who trapped a PETA person in a cage as they attempted to “rescue” a $2000 cockatoo.

According to this AP news article, Nazi saboteurs designed bombs disguised as very personal articles including chocolate bars. If the bombs had actually been deployed, they would have been the first German food items that did more damage on the way in than on the way out. Their big mistake was targeting the Brits with it. If you are accustomed to eating traditional British food, a bomb in a chocolate bar probably wouldn’t even knock your teeth out of line.

Well… my doctor always tried to tell me that chocolate can kill you.

Another week another list of new releases. Onto the releases:

Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus for the Gameboy Advance: Hopefully this one will not fall victim to the curse of horribleness that has fallen every other Barbie game. After seeing videos of gameplay I somehow doubt it.

Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy for the Gameboy Advance: 2D Platformer based on the same named Nickelodeon show.

NHL 06 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC and XBox: The next round in the most popular Hockey franchise at the now low price of $30.

NHL2K for the Playstation 2 and XBox: The next round in last years cheapest and best hockey game.

Gretzky NHL 2006 for the Playstation 2: The next round in the most expensive Hockey game of all the current franchises. Guess all the exclusive stuff with Gretzky justifies the extra $10 price tag.

Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC: Another budget collection of Casino games. This version includes over 500 variants of 16 different games.

Marine Park Empire for the PC: Another budget sim game that allows you to build your own personal Sea World.

One Piece: Grand Battle for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance: Cool looking fighting game based on the anime series One Piece.

Radiata Stories for the Playstation 2: A new role playing game from the RPG masters at Square Enix.

Rayman 10th Anniversary Edition for the Gameboy Advance: I remember when I first bought Rayman for the Playstation. I hated it 10 years ago and would most likely hate today. Granted I did love Rayman creators next game Beyond Good and Evil.

Rebelstar: Tactical Command for the Gameboy Advance: Turn based strategy game for the Gameboy Advance.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown for the XBox and Playstation 2: The next release in the long running Rainbow Six franchise.

Again a lot to pick from this week. My pick for this week: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown and if you hurry and pre-order it from EB Games you get a free copy of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow another pick of the week.

Rob Liefeld has joined forces with EBay vendor The Cargo Hold to sell all the original interior artwork to Teen Titans 27. All the proceeds generated from the sell of the artwork will go to Hurricane Katrina relief. The Cargo Hold has also put up for auction rare variant covers of various comic books to further generate revenue for Hurricane Katrina relief. Whether you hate him or love him it is good to see that at least Rob Liefeld has a heart.

Intel is starting to defend itself against AMD’s abuse of monopoly charges. They appear to be using the “discounts for good customers” type of defense that we heard from Microsoft in the late 90’s. If that’s all they have to say on the matter, then I believe they are in deep trouble.

Rewarding big customers is fine, right up until you become a monopoly. When you reach the point where you effectively have control of the market, you lose the right to do so. If you need an example of what can happen when monopolies have the ability to fix prices, just open a history book to the chapters about the industrial revolution. John D. Rockefeller taught us a lesson on why we can’t allow a single company to control the prices in a market. Oh… By the way… He managed to control the oil market with a 90% share. That’s exactly the same number that Intel has right now.

The argument that AMD brought this on themselves by not investing in fab plants is just as ludicrous. How exactly was AMD supposed to pay for these supposed plants if they were kept to a limit of 10% of the market by the business practices of their competitor?

In the end, we need to re-learn the lessons that were so severely beaten into our heads at the beginning of the twentieth century. The biggest of these lessons is that any market controlled by a single entity is no longer a free market. If the market is not free, then all consumers suffer.