Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Gets a TV Adaptation [Trailer]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Fahrenheit 451 is based on Ray Bradbury’s classic novel. In a future where the media is an opiate, history is rewritten and “firemen” burn books, Jordan plays Guy Montag, a young fireman who struggles with his role as law enforcer and with his “mentor”, played by Shannon. Premieres Spring 2018 on HBO.

[HBO]

Can you Solve the Seven Planets Riddle?

Your interstellar police squad has tracked a group of criminals to a cluster of seven planets. Now you must apprehend them before their reinforcements arrive. Of course, the fugitives won’t just stay put – they’ll try to dodge you by moving from planet to planet. Can you devise a sequence for searching the planets that’s guaranteed to catch them in ten warps or less?

[TED Ed]

DEAL: AUKEY Retro Style Mechanical Keyboard (Blue Switches) – $29.91 (With Promo Code)

Today, Amazon has Aukey’s awesome KM-G10 retro style mechanical keyboard for just $29.91 instead of $43.99 with promo code GWSGXK6D.

The KM-G10 is perfect for those who love old-school typewriters and clean, simple modern design. First-time mechanical keyboard users will find it an easy switch but refreshing change of pace. Its frameless, metal material case and the round, retro keycaps with slight indentation provide a comfortable and satisfying typing experience.

–AUKEY Mechanical Keyboard with Blue Switches, 104-Key Typewriter Retro Style with Metal Base and Round Keycaps for Typing and Gaming – $43.99 $29.91 (Use Promo Code GWSGXK6D at Checkout)

Museum: Let Us Play Network Games Legally

A museum wants the right to revive abandoned online games. It’s called for a special exemption to copyright laws.

The idea comes from Oakland, California’s Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE), which has proposed an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That’s the law that says its illegal to manufacture or develop something that can bypass or undo copyright protection technologies (regardless of whether somebody actually breaches the copyright.)

To maintain the fair use principle as technology develops, every so often the US Copyright Office reviews and revises a list of exemptions. For example, the last review added in an exemption for jailbreaking phones, overriding an argument by manufacturers that this involved modifying operating system software, which inherently involved copying it in the first place.

The exemptions already include measures users take to continue to play no-longer-supported video games, even if that means modifying software to bypass attempts to connect to a (now defunct) server for authorization. However, this only covers play on the user’s own device rather than online play.

MADE is calling for an exemption for using online gaming, opening with the bold claim that “For future historians, video games like Minecraft and Second Life will say as much about 21st century America as Dicken’s Oliver Twist does about 19th-century Britain.”

The proposed exemption would be for local area network play in a library, museum or similar archive, rather than players competing over the Internet. The exemption would mean these facilities could bypass any authentication process that currently relies on connecting to an external and now-defunct server for authorization.

The Next Web notes the game industry isn’t keen on the idea, citing argument including:

  • the proposal is simply about wanting to play games rather than having any genuine historical or academic merit;
  • MADE charges an admission fee, meaning it provides games on a commercial basis and thus isn’t eligible for an extension; and
  • the official market in retro re-releases and remasters is big enough that there’s no cultural need for the exemption.