2:49 PM (0 comments)
I only ask because I care, Kotaku:

Is signing an NDA a typical thing in journalism? I've heard of an embargo:

Principle 2.5. Embargo

A time limit that prohibits the publishing certain news before the given time, is acceptable from the professional point of view only when it is for the benefit of informing. An embargo is, in principle, an uncommitted agreement between the source and the media. Respecting of the embargo is meaningful only when based on a professionally grounded reason: the text of a speech before the speech is actually done, a business report sent in advance, an information on the event which is to take place (meetings, conclusions, ceremonies...) It is unbecoming to use the embargo to achieve greater publicity.

(From the Code of Ethics for Slovenian Journalists, believe it or not.)

But an embargo is a voluntary thing. Signing an NDA....seems slightly unseemly for a journalist. Of course, by Slovenian standards, if Kotaku had gone under a self-imposed embargo, they also wouldn't have been able to use the fact that they were embargoed to gain publicity, as they have done with the NDA. So perhaps they do know what they're doing.

(Then again, the NDA has undercut Kotaku's ability to post links to XB360 rumors. So perhaps it's simply Microsoft that knows what they're doing.)

8:25 AM (1 comments)
Via Fanboy Rampage, everything you need to know about Villains United, one of DC Comics' big summer mini-series:

Is Deathstroke like wickedly awesome or is he only radically cool in it?

Anyone that knows anything about Deathstroke knows that there are three facts about him:

1. Deathstroke is a mammal.
2. Deathstroke fights ALL the time.
3. The purpose of Deathstroke is to flip out and kill people.

Deathstroke can kill anyone he wants! Deathstroke cuts off heads ALL the time and doesn't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Deathstroke who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the Deathstroke killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Deathstroke totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

11:23 AM (0 comments)
Apparently Grand Theft Auto has appeared in the courtroom again--and a Madison courtroom at that--but this time, it's part of the defense.

8:15 PM (2 comments)
Someday I hope to attend next weekend's time traveler convention (via Glenn.)

5:42 PM (0 comments)
Once you've finished playing Psychonauts (you are playing, aren't you?), you'll definitely want a Whispering Pines T-shirt.

UPDATE: Ironically, while I was playing the game yesterday, I could have gotten a free T-shirt not five miles from my house.

Also: Tim Schafer provides one of the most accurate descriptions of game design ever:

...then it started raining, and then snowing, and then hailing, and then acid rain, and then poison snow, and then radioactive hail. And then the white lines in the field turned out to be trip wires, and when we stepped on them poison arrows shot into our legs and arms and cheeks. And then the Goodyear blimp crashed on the field, and it was one of the rare, hydrogen-filled blimps, and it exploded, and we had to run through it, and all the passengers on the blimp were burned beyond recognition, but they died in a rage so they were still alive in a smoldering, zombie state, and all the burned zombies attacked us, and then there was an earthquake, and then we found out our wisdom teeth were all impacted and had to come out, and then the world exploded, and then when we thought all the blimp zombies were dead, eight more came out of the luggage compartment, and then we twisted our ankle, and then we lost the ball for a while, and then we died.