Justinian Lane - Commentary on law, politics, and tort "reform."

Is it really a bad thing that the U.S. legal climate prevents stunts like this?

The first thing I thought when I read this was that there’s no way a company in the U.S. would try a stunt like this due to legal concerns:

2. Burnout 2: Now with Real-life Fatalities
Acclaim was already a Hall of Famer in the Museum of Messed Up Wackness (from that time it tried to desecrate the graves of the poor) when it said "Screw it, let's just start killing people!" Acclaim offered to pay the speeding fines of everyone in the UK for one day, and if there's a worse idea than "let everyone in the country ignore the speed limit," it's "let everyone in the country whose main driving experience is playing Burnout ignore the speed limit."

It also implied that the only possible downside of a speeding ton of barely controlled metal was a fine, and maybe having to replay the level (assuming that every pedestrian you hit on the way into the wall had saved recently). It was the most irresponsible stunt possible short of connecting random PlayStation controllers to real cars.
What's truly terrifying about this are the implications: Somewhere in Acclaim was an executive with control over hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when asked "what if we encouraged all the asshole boy racers in the country to speed on the same day?" he signed a great big check and said, "I see no possible problem with that." If Acclaim made Counter-Strike we'd have a new suspect for 9/11.

Source: GameSpy: Disastvertising: The Worst in Gaming PR - Page 2

The second thing I thought was that I’m glad our legal system prevents companies from doing things like this in the U.S.

Technorati Tags: litigation,lawsuits,Burnout 2

Cool Screen Capture From Call of Duty 4

I picked up Call of Duty 5 and love the new graphics… but the levels just plain suck.  The only one I like to play is Dome, but that gets too crazy too quickly.  So I went back to COD4.  Last time I tried to play it, I couldn’t because Punkbuster didn’t work on Windows 7 64-bit.  But apparently it does now, and I’m quite happy about that.  I was just playing in Crossfire (my favorite level) and came across this guy hanging from the ceiling.  I shot someone right above him, so I can’t take credit for this unfortunate fellow’s pose.  But I thought it was cool enough to screen cap.

I can’t wait for the sequel to Call of Duty 4 to come out in what, October?  Oh, and yes, that is an MP44 I’m using.

Technorati Tags: Call of Duty,Call of Duty 4,screen captures,guys hanging from ceilings

My God, I’d have too much fun with this paintball turret

I’d have so much fun with it, I’d end up needing a lawyer, and not becoming one.

This project has been in the works for over two years, making it the longest project we have done to date. When I originally started this project it was more or less a typical brain dump style invent geek project. Through the last two years of research this paintball turret has evolved through many different versions to arrive at the refined version it is today. This paintball turret system has the ability to be configured as a wired or wireless platform and we have even built it in a way to be portable for rapid backpack style deployments controlled with heads up displays up to a half mile away with a firing rate of up to 34 balls per second.

Source: Inventgeek.com - Paintball Turret – Overview

Hat tip to www.hardocp.com.

Technorati Tags: Inventgeek,paintball,paintball turret

I hope Dead Rising 2 Doesn’t Suck

The entire reason I got an Xbox 360 was because I wanted to play Dead Rising.  I love zombie movies and figured I’d love that game.  But it sucked.  All I wanted to do was run around and kill zombies.  Too bad our ADD-generation couldn’t be entertained by that simple premise.  Instead, I had to try and deal with some sniper guy, some prisoners in a military jeep, and try and rescue people from around a mall…  it sucked, sucked SUCKED.  I get angry every time I think about that game, and I can only hope the developers of this game don’t screw it up like the developers of the last one did…

In Dead Rising 2, players will once again slaughter their way through thousands upon thousands of the living dead, using a plethora of weapons to butcher them. This time, however, instead of battling zombies in a shopping mall like the original Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2 takes place in a Las Vegas-inspired city loaded with casinos and flesh-eating blackjack dealers and zombified showgirls (check out the HD screens for proof of these two zombie types). Some other zombies we've spotted in the new screens just released are construction workers, ladies dressed up for clubbing, and police officers.

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Providing the player with hundreds of weapons was a big part of the original game. In the new screens, Dead Rising 2's protagonist can be seen wielding a baseball bat, a giant-display cell phone, and an electric guitar.

Source: Dead Rising 2: set in Las Vegas-like city, screens revealed - Network World

Technorati Tags: Dead Rising,Dead Rising 2,Xbox 360