Rant Roulette

Website in Houston, Texas

So not too long after or perhaps even right before that previous post went live, the Game Developers Conference made the predictable, easy, and feel-good decision to rescind the Pioneer Award they planned to give to Nolan Bushnell. For reasons stated previously, I think this is the wrong move. I’m going to go as far as to say that the GDC’s action to rescind Nolan’s award does far more to devalue it than proceeding with the original plan to present it to him ever would have. [ 646 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/further-thoughts-on-the-nol…/

I grew up during the genesis of the video game industry. I had an Atari 2600, an Atari 1200XL computer, an Atari 7800, and an Atari Lynx growing up (I also had a Nintendo received as a holiday gift one year, which I requested once it became obvious the 7800 was lacking in decent titles). So I identify quite clearly as a member of the “Atari Generation” (not to be confused with the “Pepsi Generation”, as I mainly drank Coca-Cola and iced tea). [ 768 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/nolan-bushnell-versus-the-m…/

This has to stop somewhere and somehow. I know I haven’t been the most active in writing about this flimsy excuse for an administration, but this simply cannot be ignored. This post will have profanity in it, but only because I’m quoting our supposed “leader” here in the US. [ 645 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/profanity-racism-example-no…/

Unlike most of the stories I write on this blog, this is not sourced from an existing news story but from personal experience. The story begins back on December 21 or so. I ask mom if she has any plans for New Year's Eve. She finds the event at Memorial City Mall and proceeds to reserve a hotel room for us for the night with the idea of avoiding both potentially icy roads as well as "amateur hour", i.e. [ 748 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/20…/…/fifteen-seconds-midnight/

I know it’s been quiet over here, and yes, I definitely know it’s 2 in the freaking morning (Houston time). But, this is important and can’t wait for daybreak. For those still tuned in and following the blog, I want to get the word out about this. Today, December 7, is the day for Team Internet’s protests of the planned repeal/rollback of the rules protecting net neutrality. [ 470 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/net-neutrality-protests-tod…/

Valiant Chicken recently reported on the impending change of WordPress’s editor to an entirely new one code-named Gutenberg. VC refers to the Gutenberg editor as “the end of the world” in the sense that it “changes the very fundamental assumptions about how you use WordPress.” I took a quick look at the Gutenberg editor as it currently exists (a beta-quality plugin not intended for use on production sites). [ 503 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/wordpresss-new-gutenberg-ed…/

This is a strange one. Not too long ago, Quartz reported on an unfortunate gaffe by Apple in the calculator app in the latest version of iOS. If you typed in "1+2+3=" fast enough, you would get a wrong answer (i.e. not 6). In some cases, you would get a very wrong answer. Apple did finally get around to fixing this bug about a week after the article. [ 262 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/apple-manage-screw-ios-calc…/

It's time for another "queue jumper". This one can't wait because it is all over the news; I offer up Bleacher Report’s version if you need to catch up on the story. The crux of this was the comment from Mr. McNair: “We can’t have inmates running the prison.” Though to his credit, he did apologize for the comment earlier today on Twitter, Mr. [ 287 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/re-bob-mcnairs-gaffe-2017-o…/

I have a lot to weigh in on regarding the recent actions of our president and elected officials, given that I haven't posted a lot recently. But this, as a football fan (for the moment, anyway), is something I feel needs to "jump the queue". This story from Huffington Post covers DJT’s unfortunate and inflammatory remarks about the NFL and its players, calling for fans to boycott NFL games over the protests taking place during the playing of the national anthem. [ 714 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/nations-leadership-protests…/

A recent Daily Wire story details the somewhat sudden resignation of ABC/ESPN commentator Ed Cunningham. In essence, it became a question of ethics and conscience, quoting him as quoted in the article: I take full ownership of my alignment with the sport. I can just no longer be in that cheerleader’s spot. In its current state, there are some real dangers: broken limbs, wear and tear. [ 553 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/leaving-announcers-booth-on…/

First, the good news to my many friends and readers: I made it through Hurricane Harvey with just about everything intact. Where I am, the house took on only a small amount of water, and the most difficult part of the cleanup will probably be the wood chips and twigs deposited by the flood waters. I have been watching the non-stop news coverage off and on, flipping between KPRC (channel 2), KTRK (channel 13), and KRIV (channel 26). [ 2,544 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/re-hurricane-harvey-future-…/

Hopefully this didn’t take too long; as I'm putting the finishing touches on this post, the Charlottesville protests are about a week ago. For reasons that should be obvious, this post is one of my more difficult posts to write. It's about many "hot" topics. I am using the Wikipedia article on the events as my main source for an account of the event. [ 895 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/re-charlottesville-related-…/

I’m going to set aside the original plans for part 3 of this series, since apparently there have been new developments that Larry has posted about in the past couple of weeks that I only found out about the morning I started writing this (Sunday 8/6). Larry’s post is entitled “Deception and discrimination in Drupal” and, combined with the Drupal Association (DA) blog’s post with statements from both Dries Buytaert and Megan Sanicki… [ 2,887 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/witch-hunt-larry-garfield-p…/

A recent op-ed in The New York Times discusses some ethical and moral issues with sex robots. In particular, the issues with one such robotic personality dubbed “Frigid Farrah” which the company describes in their FAQ as “reserved and shy”. From the op-ed: Frigid Farrah is not alone in providing her user with a replica of a human partner without the nagging complication of consent. [ 647 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/sex-robots-and-thought-crim…/

I realize this is somewhat US-centric, but since a lot of internet traffic passes through the US, it does have global implications. For those of you who missed it, today many sites, like this one and my other blog, SKQ Record Quest are participating in a protest and awareness effort regarding net neutrality. A lot of people don’t realize what net neutrality is, so I will try to explain. [ 482 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/on-the-future-of-this-blog-…/

Not too long after the fire in Grenfell Tower in London, some sensationalist news articles appeared according to this TorrentFreak story. According to that story, The Sun declared some Kodi boxes to be a fire hazard, implying that a huge number of them failed electrical standards testing. Or, so they would have you believe… From the article: On Thursday, however, The Sun took a short break to put out yet another sensationalized story about Kodi. [ 408 more words ]

https://www.rantroulette.com/…/exploiting-a-tragedy-for-al…/