Gamasutra is running a transcript of a recent podcast, in which host Tom Kim interviewed the well-respected games scriptwriter Susan O'Connor. She talks about what it was like to write for games as diverse as Star Wars Galaxies, Gears of War, and Bioshock. She and Kim go into what the process of writing for games entails, the increasingly interesting Writer's Game Conference at the Austin Games Conference, the interplay between designer and writer, and what it is like to write for and as a woman in a male-dominated industry. O'Connor comments: "You can look at someone like Ang Lee, who makes these incredibly powerful movies in English set definitely in America, and yet he's not from here and English is not his first language. So I think there's something to be said as a female writer writing male characters. It does take a little bit more work to get inside of their heads, but you do have that luxury of being and outsider and being able to see it with fresh eyes."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Chemists from the University of California at Riverside designed two years ago a molecule which could move straight on a flat surface — a nano-walker if you wish. Now, they've found a way to force this walking molecule to carry packages. The nano-worker can now carry two CO2 molecules. And like yourself when you carry two heavy bags, this nano-worker is slower when it carries other molecules. The researchers think their discovery will lead to reliable ways of carrying molecules, an equivalent of the conveyor belts in today's factories."

SpaceAdmiral writes "New York City is developing a plan to allow images to be sent to 911 emergency operators from cellphones. This will likely give emergency operators better information to pass along to responders. They're also planning on implementing a program of street-corner video cameras, as seen in the city of London. According to John A. Feinblatt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's criminal justice coordinator: 'The more information that the police have and the more quickly that they get it, the more likely that they are going to fight a crime.'" How practical do you think it is to expand this sort of project to cities across the country? Moreover, is it worth the expense?

Thebes writes "Under Senate Bill S.1, political bloggers with a readership of over 500 who comment on policy matters or hope to incite 'grassroots' action amongst their readers would be forced to register with the Federal Government as lobbyists."

don_combatant writes to note that President Bush claimed new powers to search US mail without a warrant. He made this claim in a "signing statement" at the time he signed a postal overhaul bill into law on December 20. The signing statement directly contradicts part of the bill he signed, which explicitly reinforces protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval. According to the article, "A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised a review of Bush's move."

GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera journalists operate out of Qatar, for example. This raises a number of issues about internet connectivity in small countries — what other internet bottlenecks like this exist?" Update: 01/02 13:32 GMT by Z : Jim Wales wrote in the comments that the story is 'completely false'. Either way, the ban has been lifted and anonymous editing is once again possible from Qatar.

AbsoluteZero writes "A Sony rep has claimed to Destructoid that demo PS3 units in kiosks across the country were built to freeze up on purpose. From the article: "We do that so that people won't play it all day long," he explained. "Specifically during Motorstorm, we made it freeze up a lot.""

judebx writes "Powerful quakes measuring 7 on the Richter scale have struck southern Taiwan and caused damage to undersea communication cables, disrupting telephone and internet services in several parts of Asia. The quake comes on the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and triggered tsunami warnings. Human casualties, however, have been low so far."

VE3OGG writes "It would seem that scientists are not the only ones facing censorship from the White House. According to several news sources the New York Times originally had intended to run an article co-authored by a former employee of the National Security Council, critical of the current administration's policies toward Iran. The article had passed the CIA's publication review board, but was later redacted on orders from the White House. Article authors Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann were former advisers to the White House, and thus all of their publications are scrutinized by a board before they can be published. Of the numerous documents this pair has published since leaving their positions, they say this was the first that was actively censored.

FrankNFurter writes to note the launch yesterday of the FSF's BadVista campaign against Microsoft's new operating system. BadVista's aim is to inform users about the alleged harms inflicted by Vista on the user and about free software alternatives. Quoting program administrator John Sullivan: "Vista is an upsell masquerading as an upgrade. It is an overall regression when you look at the most important aspect of owning and using a computer: your control over what it does. Obviously MS Windows is already proprietary and very restrictive, and well worth rejecting. But the new 'features' in Vista are a Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions. We'll be focusing attention on detailing how they work, how to resist them, and why people should care."