It seems as if there is some anti mass media initiatives succeeding in Britain. This could be a backlash to the endemic surveillance and the “big Brother” type atmosphere in the UK.  The Facebook campaign started a backlash against the mass media driven choices for entertainment.

From the article:

Rage Against The Machine have sensationally outsold X Factor winner Joe McElderry to take the Christmas number one!

Thanks to a Facebook led campaign, the Los Angeles band’s 1992 anthem ‘Killing In The Name’ has secured the Yuletide top spot after shifting 502,000 downloads, according to the Official Charts Company.

Merry Christmas Rage!

I was surfing around the other day and ran into one of the most incredible science fiction games currently being developed called Infinity. Talking with friends and co workers throughout the years regarding space based games, the holy grail of the space explorer type game was the ability to seamlessly flow through the deep space environment giving the player the ability to land on strange and exotic planets to allow further conquest/ exploration. Well sci fi geeks, your wait is over. Now you too can drop in from a planetary orbit and step into a foreboding landscape only to ultimately get your face sucked and used as an alien incubator.

Infinity uses procedurally based algorithms  to generate galaxies which contain millions of randomly generated planets. The game looks absolutely amazing and if it is successful, looks like a watershed point in PC gaming. This is especially exciting for me since I used to stay up into the wee hours playing Elite on my Amiga 500 and thought it would never get any better.

It also looks like they are letting the community build the game assets themselves. So if you’ve got some talent and you feel like you can contribute, give these guys a holler and start submitting!

Can anybody say “Firefly Mod?!

I am posting some MUST watch videos below that showcase some of the procedural technologies. Absolutely amazing!

I never thought that it would happen. Mike judge is the Nostradumas of our time! There’s a festival next weekend in aptly named Cave in rock, Illinois and its called the 10th Annual Gathering Of The Juggalos (they made it to 10?). Watch and enjoy! I’m willing to bet that the first casting call for “Ow my Balls!” will be held there next year at the 11th annual gathering of the juggalos…

For those of us who have watched the Pirate bay trial followed by the stunning verdicts, some breaking news has come out of Swedish National Radio. According to the Wired article:

One of the four men convicted in The Pirate Bay trial is seeking to have his guilty verdict thrown out after learning that the judge in the trial is a member of two pro-copyright groups, including one whose membership includes entertainment industry representatives who argued in the case.

Stockholm district court judge, Tomas Norström told a Swedish newspaper that his previously-undisclosed entanglements with the copyright groups did not constitute a conflict of interest.

The groups include the Swedish Association of Copyright, a discussion forum. Henrik Pontén of the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau, Monique Wadsted, a motion picture industry lawyer, and Peter Danowsky from the recording industry’s IFPI are members of the organizations, and were largely responsible for pressing the case against The Pirate Bay before the judge.

Looks like justice is not blind in Sweden either. Lets hope the Pirate bay guys escape the noose and sail off into the sunset. Go pirates, go!