While I do agree that the split-screen way of playing is getting a little dated. I know I've certainly never enjoyed playing that way (too distracting and hard to follow who is playing what some times and some games), I do not agree that we are seeing the end of the LAN party and face-to-face interaction while gaming.

My Tuesday night World of Warcraft gaming group is an example of that.

Every Tuesday, my wife and I and three of our friends meet at our house and we'll to Random Instances and general quests all the while having dinner, trading amusing anecdotes, showing off strange YouTube videos, etc.

And I'm not the only ones who do that. Many in my guild are clusters of friends who LAN party at their friends houses. There is the Texas Cluster, the Washington State cluster and there's us which is the Maryland cluster. We have the scattered ones, but that's 15 people (three groups of five) who enjoy an online game as a personal interactive experience with real people under the same roof.

So is it as dead or as dying as the article says, or is it in a state of evolution? A change into something a little different than we're traditionally used to?

And here is the biggest problem with dealing with anything that evolves. Someone or something else will come along and evolve a way to defeat it. This happens in the world of biological viruses and bacteria, this happens in the world of animals, this happens in the world of Electronic Viruses and Spyware, and this happens with encryption.

I remember when the contest was to crack either the 56-bit or the 64-bit (do not remember exactly which) and it was done in a matter of days and not the years it was thought of happening in.

I remember when 8 character alpha numeric passwords were thought to be enough to be secure.

My brother-in-law at the NSA who works on securing the Government's firewalls says that it is an uphill battle at best.

I can honestly say that none of the stories of anything getting cracked surprises me any more. It seems that it is not a question of "if" it can be cracked, but "when" and "how quickly".

Well if you put it together like that, you are correct. However if you'll read the article you'll notice that the battery cradles are

[ ]
[ ]

instead of [ ][ ]

And the terminal contacts as well as the internal circuitry will sort it out.

It's a nice idea and makes life simple, especially for the people who are baffled by the battery diagrams.

Since the Doctor suggested the Wii Fit, then I have no problems with the idea of the Government pay for the Wii Fit. If this were in the US, then I would agree that the Insurance company pay for it.

HOWEVER!

Since the Wii can be used for more than just the physical fitness applications, the Wii itself should not be paid for.

I would like to see a study done where my children are tossed into the mix.

First of all, all three have a very strong desire to read which I instilled into them thanks to bedtime stories, reading times, and the allowing of the children to stay up late if they weren't tired...provided that they were reading.

This didn't impact sleep as the most determined of them only made it 45 minutes as a record before sleep clubbed them like baby harp seals.

They also enjoy interactive past times such as Role Playing games. Granted the current kick at the moment is Car Wars (I still have my compendium and Uncle Albert's Catalog from Hell), but there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a bunch of children applying the math they learned figuring out how much armor they can mount on the car and how fast they can get it to go. But, even then they have to read the manuals, they laugh at the jokes and they're getting interested in GURPS ( I'm so proud) and that involves a lot of reading.

Sure they play video games, but unlike many parents, I do not let the PS3 or the Wii become the electronic babysitter. They get some time per child per day and on weekends when the weather is nasty as all heck they'll get more time on the video games...but I monitor and make sure that they do not become so sucked into the world of electrons that they do not enjoy the world beyond it.

So, I blame the parenting. The simple fact that so many parents allow their children to be raised by electrons is the real cause as to why the test scores are showing a difference between those with and those without. They need to run a third grouping of those with and with parental guidance.

I use WiFiFoFum at my hospital to check the strength of the Wireless AP's scattered through the floors. At the moment I'm using it on a Intermec CN3 handheld scanner that we're using for Medicine scanning and verification. I wanted to get an iTouch or an iPhone so I could use it on that device since I may or may not be able to keep the CN3 that I'm currently using as my dedicated Test Platform.

By denying us access to such tools, Apple is alienating the IT Professional community and may drive us to find other applications or even (in their eyes) worse, jail-breaking the damn things so we CAN run whatever the hell we want and not what THEY want us to run.

Remember the days when we used to mock Microsoft and their advertisements by saying "Microsoft: You WILL go here today!"?

Precisely! With WoW that I play now, I have to have a healthy dose of caution from the environment and occasionally from other players for 5 minutes when I have no choice BUT to kill a PVP-classed mob...

But all in all I have the chance to enjoy the game and to explore it as I feel able to. I don't have to hide my L-45 Night-Elf Hunter from the 6-pack of L-80 Horde players who are there to gank the King of Stormwind. I can just let them go about their business and I'll go about mine.

I do frequently curse them out when they slaughter the only auctioneers in town and I have to wait for them to respawn, but I'm not in mortal terror and I can just wait until they get bored and move on.

The funny thing is, I do look forward to the time when I can PVP in the battlegrounds or raiding cities for craps-n-giggles. I just don't want anything to prevent me from hitting that level of gaming like UO used to.

As you said, one red-rated prick with a fireball and you were starting all over again, naked and broke.

Years ago, I played UO and enjoyed it.

For all of 5 days. Then it became a cringe-making hell for me.

Unless you were one of the uber-elite of gamers out there who knew how to level to demi-godhood on the servers, you were their prey.

The game became less and less fun the more I tried to simply to do something...anything to get better than a lowbie character, the more frustrating it became. I tried mining, and was frequently killed for my hard work. Logging, anything...I was a target for players who wanted nothing more than to kill and enjoy the sweat off of their victim's brow. I couldn't earn money, couldn't advance...

In fact, the only thing I was great at was dying.

Not exactly something I want to sink money into month after month. After 15 days, I gave it up as a bad idea.

Everquest came along with something that allowed the PvP'ers to have their fun and would leave us casual players to progress at our own pace. There was no real need to level to the max in nothing flat just to stay alive, one could enjoy the game. World of Warcraft did something different, but has the same result.

Why are games going this way? Because look at the "Make Love, Not Warcraft" episode of Southpark. Once someone was able to kill at will and in fact seemed to get off on ganking lower-than-he characters...people stopped playing the game. The Fictional Blizzard company in the episode saw millions of their user base turning off their computers and going outside to play.

The real Blizzard and other companies running MMORPG games would have a very real version of this problem. In fact, once EQ came out, people jumped from UO to it and most of them said that EQ was far superior not for graphics, or world development...but for the simple fact that they could PLAY the game and not flee anything that was controlled by another player.

That's why everyone maximizes game play and leaves options for people to decide to play PvP without interfering with everyone else who doesn't want to play that game.

Sure it sucks for the PvP'ers, but that's why there are PvP servers. If you want to be that kind of player...there's your world to do it in.

Well, here's a question. How many people are going to use the software router functions? Honestly?

Apart from say some chap at an airport paying the fee to get access and then sharing it to his friends/coworkers/family members so they can get net access wiithout paying for it...who is going to use that feature all the time?

Take me for an example. I played with the software for all of 30 minutes. I got my Wii to share my laptop's 3G card and said "Wow! That's Spiffy!" and then turned it off and turned my Comcast connected hardware router back on.

Why would you need a software router unless you didn't have a hardware router in your house.

For that matter if you didn't have a hardware router and just happen to be able to get your mitts on a USB Wireless Adaptor for cheap...I could see you using the software...but then you're using no more or less of the 2.4GHz band than some chap WITH the hardware router.

So, Is it really the fault of the software, or is it a fault of the simple fact that everyone and their grandmother makes wireless devices on 2.4 instead of using the other bands?