So... Activision's desperate to increase Guitar Hero's appeal, and they're making it more like Rock Band.

This might not necessarily be a bad thing, however, particularly a later bit...

The article outlines the game's studio mode, which will give users a variety of ways to create their own songs. Players will be able to jam along with one of the game's existing tracks, record songs as they're played, or meticulously detail note charts.

As rumored, the game will also allow users to share the songs they create. Players will initially only be able to upload five songs for others to enjoy, but if those tracks are rated highly by other users, the creators might "get signed," raising the cap to 10 songs or more.

Geek.com looks at how DriveSavers work their magic - these guys are good at what they do. Warning: do NOT attempt a platter swap if you don't have a clean-room (as in, the insane hygenic facility stuff with mandatory suits and all) to operate in. You'll just damage your drive.

They've got a "hall of fame" on their site of some pretty insane recovery requests too.

Saw Speed Racer yesterday, on the IMAX.

It's scoring an average 35% on the tomatometer currently, but I've learned that mass-market-ish movies generally get lower scores. The reviewers love to hate on them even while normal people (those who didn't waste far too much money going through film school only to be rejected from directing jobs and becoming hateful as a result) love them.

Speed Racer's... interesting. On the whole, I liked it. There were lots of subtle nods to the original series, great casting, an absolutely wonderful and fun color pallette, and an amazing set of special effects. But I saw it on the IMAX - if you're seeing it on a normal movie screen, or on a home screen, there's a TON of detail that will go missing from the movie.

At the same time, I can tell you exactly why the critics are panning it. #1, it takes a while to get going. #2, it commits a "sin" in their eyes of doing the "element wipe" (a moving screen element serves as the border for a wipe between scenes). In the movie, it works, but the critics hate it when you use the same wipe style over and over.

If you've got the chance to catch it on an IMAX, go for it. It really just won't be the same on a smaller screen.

Want to know why the PC games market's dying? This might have something to do with it.

If you buy Spore or Mass Effect, they will "die" if they can't phone home every 10 days. That's right: you BOUGHT a copy of a game, you play it single-player, yet it expects to phone home to the company.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

I have some words for Bioware and EA, but unfortunately they all involve four letters.

[UPDATE]: EA have partially come to their senses - but only partially. It still has SecuROM crudware, it just won't phone home much.

Ted Key has passed on.

Bust out your DVDs of Rocky & Bullwinkle and look back on some improbable history in his honor.

A lot of mail servers are hit hard - in part because spammers are trying to use them to "backscatter" spam by sending to known nonexistent addresses.

We saw a major attack like this the past couple weeks, and it may get worse; the line of trying to watch for this, versus not sending NDR (nondelivery reports) back for a bad address, is tricky. After all, you don't want spam, but you also want to know if you mistyped an address or someone's moved.

Movie coming soon - VR Mag has a great article set on how the movie's effects were made.

The more I see of the upcoming Speed Racer movie, the more hopeful I am for it.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core.

There's a game in here - I just know it. It's in there somewhere.

Review will come later this week.

Yep, it works up there too.

Now, a moonbuggy in Alabama can go just fine without a fender, but in Taurus-Littrow a missing fender was a potential disaster. The reason is moondust. When a rover rolls across the lunar surface, it kicks up a plume of moondust in its wake. (Astronauts called them "rooster tails.") Without a fender, the rover would be showered by a spray of dark, abrasive grit. White spacesuits blackened by dust could turn into dangerous absorbers of the fierce lunar sun with astronauts overheating inside. Sharp-edged dust wiped off visors would scratch the glass, making helmets difficult to see out of. Moondust also had an uncanny way of working itself into hinges, latches and joints, rendering them useless.

They taped the fender back on, and later replaced it with a set of laminated maps duct-taped together. Small wonder every single manned space mission includes a spare roll of the stuff.

This is probably the best rebuttal to this type of sensationalist garbage I've seen yet.

Perhaps he's envisioning a scenario where a user spends five minutes googling, comes up with nothing, calls that a "good faith" search and forges ahead with an infringing use. That's not going to fly before the court; the user will have to detail how he conducted the search, and if the copyright owner can demonstrate that no, actually, it is quite easy to find the work's original owner, the "good faith" provision doesn't apply. And even if the "good faith" provision does apply, the Copyright Office recommends that the user should still have to compensate the owner for a reasonable amount.

It's all there in writing, folks. This isn't that hard.

In addition, the "orphan works" provision is important for another reason - how many pieces of software, how many other works are currently unattended and in danger of vanishing entirely?