Lawyers, Genetics, and the Wiimote

Signum sine tinnitu--by Guy Kawasaki: The Top Ten Lies of Corporate Partners: "4. “Our legal department won’t be a problem.” In other words, the legal department hasn’t seen the proposal yet. There are two kinds of legal departments in large companies: (a) the kind that automatically says, “No,” when asked, “Can we do this?” (b) and the kind that automatically says, “No,” when asked, “Can we do this?”"


I am not really looking forward the day when I need to run everything by the lawyers. It's not that I don't like lawyers or legal thought, in particular examing all of the possible scenarios that must be addressed in a contract is something akin to figuring out all of the possible input conditions on a piece of software. You even get to write up those scenarions in language that most people can't read. I just don't like how it tends to make small points define business direction- especially when people don't want to do something because they don't want to go through the trouble of asking the lawyers.



Of course, I learned everything I know about law from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I would like to see more realistic scientific games- it would be more fun for me to solve cancer than do a cross examination- "Tucson Wright: Ace Geneticist". (somehow, re-mission doesn't cut it.) You could use the "Wiimote" (is it really called that?) to pour stuff from beaker to beaker.



I defy anyone to watch the Nintendo Wii promo video and not be impressed by the fun factor. I like the whole marketing philosophy behind it- focusing on the fun factor and letting the other companies worry about pixels and polygons and frames per second and exploiting the hardware. Of course, the combination of both manages to be exciting as well. I have heard of all of these virtual globe applications that aim to be both fun to navigate, and push the limits of what can be displayed. It would be fun to use a Wiimote style controller in Google Earth- I am getting pretty pretty proficient with the middle button, so much so that I don't know what to do when using it on the Mac.

The only thing missing is cool sound effects when panning and zooming around the globe. Maybe someone should build a little plugin that puts a soundtrack behind Google Earth. It would play cool effects when panning around? The music would get faster when you pan faster? It would get more intense when you zoom in? It would music of the area you were currently zoomed in over? That's me off to collect whale songs of the nothern Pacific for another project I'll never finish....