Ramblings of a Wayward Code Slave

Well, the latest series of accusations in the media surrounding the stem cell research issue now involves former TV star, Parkinson's victim, and stem cell research advocate Michael J. Fox. It seems that Fox testified before Congress on Parkinson's and how stem cell research could help everyone suffering from the disease and Rush Limbaugh later bashed him for exaggerating his condition for the cameras.

Now I have no idea if Fox did this or not, but I know it's getting ugly out there and the accusations are flying. If we believe Limbaugh, Fox either exaggerated his condition or deliberately didn't take his medicine prior to going in front of the committee and the cameras. If we believe Fox, Limbaugh just got his tongue caught between a rock and a hard place. I have no idea who is correct, but there's a lot of credibility on the line here. Limbaugh stands to lose credibility with the conservatives and Fox stands to lose credibility with just about everyone. The shame here is that, if Limbaugh is indeed correct, the fight to end Parkinson's might suffer as a result. Shoot, in this age of accusation equaling guilt the Parkinson's crowd might already be taking some considerable damage.

I have no doubt that spin doctors are doing damage control on both sides but it's still a shame that something as tragic and serious as Parkinson's Disease has to take back stage to the limelight issue of who said and did what to whom. I knew a man with Parkinson's once a long time ago. It's a serious disease regardless of whether medication is involved or not and the disease -- not the issue of Fox shaking around in a chair -- should take center stage.

And for the record, I'm not just a supporter of stem cell research but am a wholehearted advocate of it. The staunch hardcore conservatives tie this into abortions and right-to-life but there are many ways of getting stem cells. Stem cell research could do for medicine what the transistor did for technology if we just let the scientists get to work. Imagine people in need of transplants one day growing new organs instead. Better yet, if you're against the research then imagine being on the waiting list for a heart that you know is never going to come. It can save lives at the cost of no lives. That's a no-brainer.

Once upon a time I had a life. I actually saw and talked to real live people, I had friends, I went places, and life was good. Somewhere after that I somehow managed to misplace it. I've made numerous attempts at ascertaining its present location, but its whereabouts continue to be a mystery not only to me but to everyone in close proximity to my now-demented and dilapidated state of being.

Perhaps the question is not where, but why. Why did my life decide to go on indefinite hiatus and leave me with only a shred of my former personality? I unfortunately know the answer to that question and it can be summed up in three words: World of Warcraft. I've always enjoyed computer games and when I tried WoW (as gamers call it) it was amazing. Breathtaking graphics, great action, and since it was a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) I wasn't just playing with and against computer opponents but also real people on the other end of my network connection. It was great fun and considering that I was going through a divorce at the time it was a welcome distraction from being alone in my apartment.

Unfortunately, WoW is like online crack. It's insidious. It starts out as a neat thing to play with and then it starts growing in your psyche like a weed. You start out with a Level 1 character and then go all out to level it up to 60, the current level cap. Once you hit 60, though, you usually get involved with one of many guilds in the game that consist of a bunch of other players spanning a multitude of classes. Together, a guild usually picks 40 players at a time to go into one of many endgame instances and face various challenges while picking up new gear and loot. This, in turn, allows the guild to progress into harder instances where you, well, do the same thing.

Does it sound monotonous and boring? It is, after you learn how to defeat everything in the instance. The guild I'm in has an instance called Molten Core on farm status (meaning we plow through it at lightspeed to get gear for our newer level 60 people) and we've completed a harder instance called Blackwing Lair several times but still have occasional wipeouts for various reasons. It's fun learning the new fights but the farmed instances are real sleepers. I can't really not go to the farm sessions, however, because my percentage attendance drops and I might then be passed over for the more interesting stuff. So I suck it up and go.

So I go on these runs about 4 times a week, teaming up with 39 other people who are just voices and computer-generated images. It's ironic that I "see" these people more often than anyone else except for my coworkers. A number of people have left the guild because their real-life needs were not being covered due to spending too much time online in WoW. While I don't live in the game like some, I do probably spend about 15 hours each week either in instances or doing something else, usually in preparation for an instance. I almost never watch any TV these days which I initially credited WoW with doing, but in retrospect I think I substituted apples for oranges rather than do something where I was spending my time more wisely.

I like playing WoW and don't want to just quit cold turkey. I may back off from it, though, and gain some perspective on things. My divorce is over and it's time that I start rebuilding my life and establish some relationships with people I can actually touch. I initially played WoW as a distraction and while I was distracted it sucked me in and substituted itself for pretty much everything. It's time to find where I hid my life.

If you're a WoW gamer yourself, I'm on the Burning Legion server, Horde faction. My character is a Level 60 troll mage named Olog -- after Tolkien's name for the trolls who could walk in daylight, the Olog-Hai -- and my guild is Black Hand Clan.

I remember when computer companies were about creating things. IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and the others were coming out with new, interesting, and useful software. Now it seems that the same old thing just keeps getting repackaged in a new wrapper and pushed out to the masses like yet another Big Mac. Instead of hearing about new innovations we hear about intellectual property and lawsuits. Case in point: IBM has sued Amazon over several patents that Amazon refuses to license from IBM. They're all inane patents and I consider the lawsuit frivolous from a technical perspective; however, from dealing with lawyers for the past 10 months I've learned that technical frivolity rarely enters into the law. I think that patenting software components and/or processes are a patently absurd idea, akin to my patenting the shape of a sphere and then suing the sun for violating my intellectual property for the last five billion years.

Of course, Amazon is no newcomer to the IP combat zone, going after rival Barnes and Noble for violating Amazon's infamous one-click patent, currently being contested in the courts. Copyrighting software is fine but taking an idea and then saying that nobody else can have it without paying you is bad for the industry and for the consumers. It stifles innovation, it makes software development much more expensive and the risks far greater, and it makes garage software companies (the backbone of the software industry that emerged in the '70s) a business model that just won't work. It was those bright, creative, and hungry geeks that made much of the technology we use today. Ironically, they also built up the companies that now have their respective lawyers in Armani suits duking it out over IP; of course, most of the free-thinking creative-types who built these companies got ousted first, like Steve Wozniak of Apple.

It's a crying shame that the computer industry has become like the rest of corporate America: bloated, greedy, and willing to steamroll over anything and anyone to get more revenue. In the end it's the stock market that's driving it. IBM stock went up $1.11 on news of this lawsuit. When Wall Street has their collective fingers in the pie then you know that it's time to hold onto your wallet and pray that you're too small a company for the Armani warriors to notice you.