Strange searches for the day

Strange searches that led people to my web sites ...

• "What number of left handed people die each year from using right handed tools"
• "CIA Assassins Invocation"
• "How is game piracy been combatted"

What an odd series of searches encountered in the logs this morning. Yes, I did quote once that 2,500 people in one particular year, were left handed people who had died from using right handed tools. Not particularly sure where I picked that useless piece of information up from, but in talking to a purveyour of quality professional tooling equipment, it is apparently a fact that many handles and grips are biased towards right handed people, and that various parts of their tool ranges are available in left handed flavours. Most of the accidents seem to be down to the grip handles, which are biased to support pressure (like a veined screwdriver handle; watch which way the veins are pointed) from one direction. Of course, this bias towards grip in one direction turns in to slip in the other.

Considering the second search ... why on earth would one dream of invoking a CIA assassin? Provoking, I can understand, if you are feeling particularly suicidal and wish for a clean death, (just be prepared for a hoard of innocent bystanders to be killed alongside you; the Americans have this reputation, you see. It's like a Union Jack to a bull, especially if you're driving a tank at the time, with said flag draped over the top.) ... but invoking is going a bit far. (scene - three haggared crones around a fire) "Eye of toad, leg of newt ..." (finish the poem yourself ... comments on a blog-card please ...)

As for game piracy needing to be combatted, well I don't see why. I had a battle with a game recently, called Half Life 2. I bought the original more than a year ago. It employs "Steam" technology that decrypts the game when you load/run it. It used to run nicely, and then I shelved the game for the best part of a year when life went nuts. On returning to the game, fancying a five minute blast, it forced me to sit for ten minutes (I am on broadband, by the way) while it updated Steam, and then it forced a half hour download of patches and updates for the main game itself.

After the best part of an hour while it chugged away, it then refused to run the game. It launched, loaded, and then gave me the silent treatment. Obviously I had left it too long and it had got the huffs with me. Who said that computers don't have a personality?

A three week technical battle ensued, at which newsgroups were far more effective than the help line crew from the manufacturers. It was all down to the technology that they had used to protect the game. (no, before you mention it, deinstalling and reinstalling wouldn't work either ... there was also a bug in their installer program!) At the point I reached of asking a friend to bring down their pirated copy of the game (because the pirates had stripped out all this complete nonsense) I eventually managed to get it working and finished the game a month or so later.

Game protection that forces the installation CD to be in the machine at the time of playing also drives me nuts. While I'm playing, the original CD that I've paid good money for, sits there spinning and getting scratched. When it eventually dies, it then costs me more money and hassle to get it replaced. Even mighty Eidos had to send me a patch to turn off their CD protection system, as it apparently didn't work on some CD Rom drives and stopped the legitimate game from working.

Publishing giant Sony came a cropper after installing root kit software on to peoples machines to protect their music CD's. That protection software opened the doors for hackers to infultrate and take over machines. I'm not going in to the details here ... it is well documented all over the place!

Stuff game protection. I say strip the protection, save the cash, and pass the saving on to the high street. Perhaps they would sell more games. The only person that gets hurt seems to be the legitimate consumer. (points to leg cast, crutch, plasters on face, etc.)