I’ve taken to jogging with Wii Fit lately, and have found something interesting when running any of the three loops. At certain points during the run, a dog will bark and run past you. When this happens, if you quick run past your guide, you will instead follow the dog on a new lap around the island. You can do this everytime a new dog runs, thus giving you a pretty decent number of unique paths to run. Here’s the order that dogs appear and the route that each dog takes you on.

Island Loop

• Original Guide – Standard island lap
• Yellow – Over the rope bridges
• Black – Secondary loop around the mountain
• White – Through the small town and the windfarm
• Brown – Through the caverns and along the beach
• Mocha – To the mountain top lake and river

Long Loop

• Original Guide – Standard long lap
• Mocha – Through the large city and the windfarm
• White – All around and through the large city
• Brown – Follow the surf line

Short Loop

• Original Guide – Standard short lap
• Mocha – Through the small town

If you know of any other hidden jogging paths in Wii Fit, be sure to let me know and I’ll update this list.

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I ran across this information the other day and found it quite interesting. The first graph plots Barack Obama, John McCain, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton according to their voting records. The second plot depicts the same individuals on a scale from moderate to partisan (be it democrat or republican). The surprising observation that John McCain is actually less partisan than Barack Obama. Essentially, Obama is about as liberal as Bush is conservative, while the same comparison applies to McCain and Clinton.

All data is taken from OnTheIssues.org.

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As a proud technology nerd, I found the following information very interesting (and quite disconcerting). According to his record, Joseph Biden…

• …has close ties with and fully supports the RIAA and the MPAA. [The RIAA and MPAA understandably want to protect their work, but they go way too far. As an example, according to them, you're not allowed to make backups of your own CDs and DVDs.note]
• …strongly supports internet censorship. [Seriously, this is a basic freedom of speech issue. Take a look at the Great Firewall of China. Is that what we want the U.S. internet to look like? I didn't think so.note]
• …opposes encryption that does not allow plain text backdoors. [The whole point of encryption is to keep your data safe from the outside world. If anyone can just get your private key (government included) what's the point? This one is especially ridiculous.note]
• …strongly opposes peer-to-peer technology. [Yes, P2P is used extensively for illegal content, but the technology itself is not (and should not) be outlawed/bottlenecked. This would simply punish all of those (like myself) who use this fantastic technology for legitimate contentnote]

Here’s the data to support the above points:

• Biden sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden’s bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it. [link]
• Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department “to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.” This means that the taxpayers pay for the MPAA’s and RIAA’s lawsuits. [link]
• Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans’ ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. [link]
• Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA’s Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. [link]
• Biden has twice introduced bills with the following language: It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law. [link]
• In 1996 Biden voted for a bill that would have required “states to place Social Security numbers on drivers licenses and to obtain fingerprints or some other form of biometric identification for licenses.” [link]
• Biden pushed to make posting bomb-making information on the Internet a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail. He has a record of supporting internet censorship. [link]
• In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. [link]
• On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that “the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.” [link]

Much thanks to CNet News for compiling the original data used here.

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