What I believe to be the most consistently hilarious and brilliant satire website (and printing press) on the planet, The Onion, has just launched a new satire television show called the "Onion News Network"

It debuts tonight (Jan 21, 2011) on the IFC cable channel in the US (www.ifc.com).

The show lampoons news channels like CNN and FOX, and will feature segments from several of the video series that they have been showing on the site in recent years (Today Now, etc.).

For my money, the stuff produced by the Onion is just in a whole different league that things like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, etc.  I can't wait!

http://www.theonion.com/channels/ifc/

There is an article up on softpedia today about the recent uproar over changes to RoboForm:

The recession hit everybody and software developers don’t make an exception. Therefore, in order to best deal with this situation, some companies have decided to take immediate action and make some important changes to their licensing model. Now, most companies did this with a sense of ethics... but not all of them, so this article covers the most recent example of how NOT to go about this kind of changes.

First things first though: a company that took notice of the economic changes a long time ago was Slysoft, the developers of the popular AnyDVD. The first measure they took was to switch from dollars to euros.

Of course, as time passed by, new measures were required and so, recently, the company announced yet another change to its licensing program: the switch from lifetime licenses to yearly subscriptions.

Why is this example worth mentioning, you ask. Well, because in both cases, Slysoft not only announced the changes at least a few weeks before making them, but they also offered a 20% discount in the weeks prior to the change. Obviously, all current registered users were not affected by these changes, they didn't have to pay a single cent or change their subscription plan.

How not to change a licensing model

By the way, I also cross-posted this to the Roboform v6 to v7 Upgrade thread

I'm glad to see GarageGames alive again. They have quite an amazing 3D engine so the $99 price point with full source code and no royalties is really amazing! The 2D engine shouldn't be overlooked either.

You've been patiently waiting and the time has come. GarageGames is back! We've changed our name back to GarageGames and we are dropping the prices on all products to $99.00 to celebrate our new direction and return to our indie roots. It's been a storied ten years for the GarageGames name and we are looking forward to ushering in the next decade.

The return of GarageGames is much more than a $99 price point. It's a commitment to the community who grew with us over the years. It's a return to the values that brought people together to make great games without the burden of unbearable pricing or royalties. Our community is a diverse group of people who are willing and able to help each other grow as game developers and we can't wait to take that community to the next level.

http://www.garagegam...ity/blog/view/20775/

Interesting article about an Artificial Intelligence Programming Contest involving a popular computer game, Starcraft:

http://arstechnica.c...t-ai-competition.ars

We’re gathered in a conference room on the Berkeley campus, the detritus of a LAN party scattered around us. The table is covered with computers and pizza, and there’s a game of StarCraft projected on the screen. Oriol Vinyals, a PhD student in computer science, is commanding the Terran army in a life-or-death battle against the forces of the Zerg Swarm.

Oriol is very good—one-time World Cyber Games competitor, number 1 in Spain, top 16 in Europe good. But his situation now is precarious: his goliath walkers are holding off the Zerg’s flying mutalisks, but they can’t be everywhere at once. The Zerg player is crafty, retreating in the face of superior firepower but never going far, picking off targets of opportunity and applying constant pressure.

Then Oriol makes a mistake. He moves his goliaths slightly out of position, just for a few seconds. It’s enough. The mutalisks react instantly, streaming through the gap in his defenses and making straight for his vulnerable workers. By the time Oriol brings the goliaths back to drive off the mutalisks, his workers are wiped out and his resource production is crippled.

Oriol makes a desperate, last-ditch attack on the Zerg base, trying to break through before the mutalisks are reinforced, but it’s too late. One after another, his goliaths get ripped apart by the Zerg defenses. As a new wave of mutalisks emerges from the Zerg hatcheries, he has no choice but to concede—to the computerized AI that just defeated him.

There's a palpable air of celebration in the room; even Oriol is grinning. He was just beaten by the Berkeley Overmind, an AI agent that our team in the room spent the past few months working on. The Overmind is our entry into the 2010 StarCraft AI Competition, and after dozens of test matches, it has finally defeated our human StarCraft expert for the first time

-http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/skynet-meets-the-swarm-how-the-berkeley-overmind-won-the-2010-starcraft-ai-competition.ars/

I found this forum while browsing fluxxbb related discussion. It can be integrated with wordpress to use the same usernames for author and forum users.

http://www.wikidforum.com/

Funny stuff:

Everybody is a comedian these days, and the Internet has given us all an enormous stage. Maybe the best example is a supposedly comedy-free site like Amazon.com.

The deal is, anybody can write a review, on any product, whether they have bought it or not. So it's just a matter of finding a baffling/ridiculous/useless product and watching the Internet's sarcasm run wild. For instance, just check out the reviews for ...

http://www.cracked.c...rcastic-reviews.html