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I couldn't have said it better myself.

I ended up writing a series on my (now sadly become rather stale) blog called "Why I Hate D20" wherein I discussed being an old-school (think 1979 for my first experience) RPG player grappling with the then new-ish "OMG Isn't It Cool!" D20 rule set. In the end, I just concluded that I was just getting a little too old to be able to waste a weekend around a kitchen table with nothing more than my dice, some friends, and my imagination.

This, of course, is total bunk.

What I ended up doing is re-writing some rules I'd put together when I was -- I shit you not, now -- 13 years old. I cleaned up the design a bit, of course, but the spirit remained the same.

The name? QUIDPERG: The Quick and Dirty Role Playing Game.

Character creation takes no longer than ten minutes.

Scenarios take no longer than ten minutes to create.

Combat? Quick, dirty, and brutal.

Result? It's a blast.

Is it as feature-rich as most of the commercial packages? Of course not. But it's playable, and my group finds it fun.

(Heck, I should just release the damned thing on my Blog.)

I wrote QUIDPERG because I genuinely think that the RPG as a pass time has lost its way. While it's neat to be able to buy pre-painted minis and battle mats for our games, the fact of the matter is that the core mechanic -- the fun -- was lost in the mix. So I'm going back to it.

QUIDPERG is right for my group. Would it work right for others? Who knows? Really, though, that's beside the point. If we GMs find ourselves fighting with ridiculous mechanics (D20), then we have this neat option to just say "No!" Exercise that right, folks. You'll feel better that you did.

"This means that at some point the Referee (or DM or whatever you call him/her) will want to 'cheat', hopefully in favour of the players, or more specifically 'in favour of a good story'."

Yuck!!

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/05/coddling-players.html

I disagree with the original article: ALSA is the way to go, I have drivers for all cards I've thrown at it, all applications imaginable that support ALSA work just fine for me, and no, as a OSS-to-ALSA changeover survivor, I don't want to change everything to another frigging API yet again (much less back to OSS), thank you very much. And while PulseAudio is less than perfect right now, I recognise it has uses.

But that's just that - it has uses. In its current state, I'm not using it for plain-ordinary music playing on my Debian system. I don't think it's ready enough as a common day-to-day audio routing thing. Still too many problems.

An example case: I was really disappointed when I upgraded Ubuntu on an older computer (600Mhz Pentium III with 256M memory and ESS Solo 1 onboard audio, plenty good enough for OpenOffice.org and web browsing, even ran Compiz at very good performance on GeForce 2 MX =) and sound playback started to just plain suck, when it previously worked just fine with straight-up app-to-ALSA playback. The machine just wasn't fast enough to route stuff through an application, plain and simple. And now Ubuntu foisted PulseAudio in. Uninstall PulseAudio = uninstall entire frigging GNOME desktop. I kept trying to tell it "no, I just want ALSA playback" in sound settings. No dice, pulseaudio kept respawning and hogging audio device all to itself. I kept disabling shit from all places imaginable. No dice, pulseaudio kept respawning. Now, I'm going insane (an unrelated story). I'll be armed with GCC and some dummy binaries. Mheheh. Muahaha. MUAHAHAHAHA. ...any better ideas?

I am German and live in the United States. Unfortunately I can't give you any numbers but I would guess that the percentage of avid readers is much higher in Germany than the US. Reading is extremely popular in Germany while it seems fairly rare in the US. I have only highly educated geeks as friends here and they tend to read a lot but as far as the general US population is concerned I don't think it is a very popular pastime. I only found that there are around 80,000 new titles being released every year in Germany and this very depressing article about US readership. I know that my experience is not necessarily statistically relevant, but I do go back to Germany every year and I see quite a few bookstores and people reading while using public transportation. My parents did not have college degrees, yet my mom strongly encouraged book reading through financial incentives when I was a kid growing up in Germany and virtually all my friends were reading. But, that was 30 years ago. From the articles that I did find through google.de it seems that reading is as popular as ever in Germany and making good money for German publishers. I had read well over 1,000 books by the time that I graduated from high school in Germany! Apart from leaving my human friends behind when I came to the US to study physics, leaving my book "friends" behind was the hardest! :)

And then those H1Bs go home, open offices for the corp they left and hire there instead. If it's 'donkey work' like what IT is percieved as now, those jobs aren't coming back, at least for that company, and the ones that follow suit.

If we didn't have 'work visas' like other countries do, it would be much worse. What's needed are additional protections. That's right, what China and India have: 'Protectionism.'.. But hey, we're the stupid American monkeys who just give it away. Get workers in on H1Bs or even student visas, and if it doesn't work out just send the yob back to his own country to recruit from boundless masses of the 3rd world.

And if it's not that than it's this:
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/2009/10/indian-non-h1b-veteran-geek-smegs-on_07.html

-Drunken Economist
    http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
    http://twitter.com/drunk_economist

And then those H1Bs go home, open offices for the corp they left and hire there instead. If it's 'donkey work' like what IT is percieved as now, those jobs aren't coming back, at least for that company, and the ones that follow suit.

If we didn't have 'work visas' like other countries do, it would be much worse. What's needed are additional protections. That's right, what China and India have: 'Protectionism.'.. But hey, we're the stupid American monkeys who just give it away. Get workers in on H1Bs or even student visas, and if it doesn't work out just send the yob back to his own country to recruit from boundless masses of the 3rd world.

And if it's not that than it's this:
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/2009/10/indian-non-h1b-veteran-geek-smegs-on_07.html

-Drunken Economist
    http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
    http://twitter.com/drunk_economist

Or they just cut a deal with their company to work here while the paperwork is going thru and then when it doesn't, or a couple years pass they just go open a 'research office' in India or China.

MUCH cheaper for the company, the foreigner keeps his job, and the bonus is the US firm now has a manager who can hire from a pool of MUCH cheaper labor. As designed. With no repercussions from the US Gov't.

-Drunken Economist
    http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
    http://twitter.com/drunk_economist

The bulk of these folks were never 'ours' to begin with. They came here to get educated and OF COURSE to go back to their own countries, of course with stronger dollars to establish themselves back in their own countries with their own families. The only snag this year and thereafter is the weak dollar, but that doesn't matter, it's funny money anyway.

We didn't 'steal' them, we 'borrowed' them.

That's why H1Bs come over here, and then a few years later end up opening 'research offices' in China, India and other places -- with the blessings of multinationals like Microsoft.

But again, there's no 'brain drain' or reverse thereof. These folks are mercenaries, who may have been with, but were never *OF* the United States. The 'war' is over, so they're heading 'home'. There's no reason to stay in the US if there's no $$$ to be made.

There's no sense of home or duty to country because they're not citizens. Despite that, they get all the benefits thereof. What a stupid country the USA is, conferring the benefits of citizenship to *foreign residents*. Who then get to go home and take their jobs with them -- to open up offices to replace US jobs.

When Steve Ballmer threatens to move all of $MSFT overseas if the corp tax rates are raised it's an insult. The bastard's been systematically moving jobs overseas ANYWAY via this so-called 'reverse brain drain', filling his foreign offices. As designed. And other companies like Adobe follow suit.

On the other hand, US citizens who want to work overseas are double taxed on any income over $92K by our wonderful Federal Gov't. US Expats in Japan right now who make what used to be $70K equiv now have tax effects because the USD is toilet paper. The only folks making out now are Japanese residing either here OR in Japan.

No other foreign gov't other than the US confers such a disadvantage on their own citizens, while allowing foriegners to just come in and learn our best tech and then just up and leave.

And if you're a foreigner, why would you want to stick around in such a stupid, contrary country that treats you better than its own citizens?

-Drunken Economist
    http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
    http://twitter.com/drunk_economist

I say this as an American: we've become barbarians. We torture people. We incarcerate more people, both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis, than any other nation in the world, and think it's okay to gang-rape 1% of our population. Our wealth is distributed like that of a banana republic. We're stupid, vapid, and like a feral child, we snarl and bite when someone tries to help us. America really is the sick man of the world, and personally, I'm about ready to give up and pronounce the disease incurable. We can argue about causes and solutions, but you can't deny that we're in a steep decline. As George Orwell write,

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Pretty much everything along the lines of this legislation that is pioneered here in California eventually gets adopted by the remaining forty-nine states

And on other matters of legislation the rest of the country is laughing at you.

The GPL has been tested in court? I must have missed this one.

No, actually you missed all of them.

In the US: http://www.fsf.org/news/wallace-vs-fsf

In Germany: http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/57353

In France: http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-win-for-gnu-gpl-in-france.html

Just google 'GPL tested court' for more links (there are older cases that got in front of a judge too)...

I wold imagine they want to keep the lid on the techniques they are looking at for anti-counterfeiting.

Hmmh, seems like they could simply obscure that part of it by saying, "We got hyper-secret, techniques we refuse to talk about." That is almost plausible. Some of the criticism sugest that it will allow police-state powers to be mobilized against ordinary people for having backups of their music and software. The IP cartel is steadfastly opposed to such things.

What are the enforcement provisions? We don't know, and aren't going to be allowed to know--until it's too late. This is a mockery of any and all democratic principle. They are spitting in our faces. Of course, the non-democratic, and anti-democratic nations will love this, as it will strengthen their grips on their respective societies.

Furthermore, there seem to be provision aimed at setting up an independent ACTA organization which will above and not accountable to any national supervision. Copyright Geheime Staatspolizei anyone? If they are so afraid of going public, that everything must be hidden behind an iron curtain of secrecy, anything is plausible.

Miscellaneous links: Wikipedia ACTA criticism, EFF, KEI Patry. Patry observed that "extensive changes" would be necessary to U.S. law to bring it into compliance. How many years in prison would accused music downloaders be facing under ACTA? None of us knows. It's secret!!

An interesting response from an AC, copied here so more folks will see it:
=========
Yep, I know about shareholder value and agency theory, and yes it is indeed ridiculous. Many companies, particularly the newer ones like Google, already consider it obsolete, and more will as time goes, of course.
          http://freekvermeulen.blogspot.com/2008/07/shareholder-value-orientation-now-where.html
          http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28502078_ITM

This one is my favorite article about this, particularly see the linked articles:
http://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/the-end-of-shareholder-value/
======

Yep, I know about shareholder value and agency theory, and yes it is indeed ridiculous. Many companies, particularly the newer ones like Google, already consider it obsolete, and more will as time goes, of course.
http://freekvermeulen.blogspot.com/2008/07/shareholder-value-orientation-now-where.html
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28502078_ITM
This one is my favorite article about this, particularly see the linked articles:
http://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/the-end-of-shareholder-value/

This is an important debate, but Neil McAllister's article suffers from a number of problems. For example, it references the recently popular Webkit Comparison Table along with Peter-Paul Koch's claim that there is no “WebKit on Mobile”. The article didn't point out that some people like Alex Russel have dug deeper and have found that the facts don't support PPK's conclusions as strongly as one might think. Yes, if you include lots of older devices, there's quite a divergence in Webkit deployments, but what PPK and Neil McAllister don't say is that compatibility is much better on devices that ship recent versions, it's especially good for core features, and it's improving all the time.

McAllister also implies that the mobile Web is in trouble because "On my BlackBerry, JavaScript performance is abysmal". Using that argument, I can prove that Windows will never be successful, because I could in the early days show you PC's that ran it with abysmal performance. The potential of technologies like Javascript needs to be evaluated using the best implementation you can find; that shows what's possible. He does go on to say: "And even when a handset vendor does improve JavaScript performance, as Apple did with iPhone OS 3.0, it's a relative increase." Aren't they all? "You're still dealing with a poky handheld processor (and in Apple's case, one that developers speculate is too feeble for Flash or Java)." Uh, so now the reason that the HTML and Javascript will fail is that ARM processors are too slow to run Java? What's the connection I'm missing? The fact is, that there are some pretty good AJAX sites for mobile, so we know the ARM processors are good enough to run that Javascript. Try, for example, going to http://www.gmail.com using Safari on your iPhone. Not a usable experience? Even works offline using HTML 5 local storage (not Gears). Also, even if Javascript performance were somehow related to Java performance, I bet the Android folks would like to hear that Java doesn't run right on ARM processors, since the entire upper level infrastructure of Android, including user applications, is built on just that combination (as optimized using the Dalvik VM).

Unfortunately, articles like this can do real damage. Many people who are not expert in these things are struggling to figure out which mobile application development models are going to be workable. I happen to believe that the Mobile Web will, like the desktop embodiment of the Web, grow as disruptive technologies tend to: from something that's a bit shaky at first to the model that dominates? Why? Because unlike Mr. McAllister, I believe that the underlying processors and system technologies are capable of running it, and the value of a model that is fully cross-platform, can support zero install operation (you might want to install a mapping application to find a restaurant, but you almost surely don't want to install the restaurant's application to read menus or get discount coupons), can also scale to support installable applications (Widgets) and offline operation, is compelling. Furthermore, as has been the case for years, the Web has the unique value of allowing you to link to the over 1 trillion Web pages, without jumping out from some proprietary application container to a Web browser. Whether I'm right about the likely success of the mobile Web or not, this whole question deserves a much more careful analysis than McAllister's article provides. Unfortunately, there will be many people who read it and jump to the conclusion that the mobile Web is failing. A shame.

I decided to publish my ideas. I really like the idea of the moving monitor platform but since I'll never get to it maybe someone else will. http://innovationsforgrabs.blogspot.com/

So does the US, it's called Alaska, and it's bigger than Finland. There's also a lot of other areas in the US that are pretty much devoid of people. Like the whole middle of the country. Apart from a few major inland cities, most Americans live along the east and west coasts

I had to port a mobile app to both iPhone and Android. The Objective-C wasn't much of a barrier as I already knew C and C++ so it was mostly just syntactic sugar.

Of the two platforms the iPhone was by far the easiest to get my head around - in terms of architecture an iPhone app is very close to writing a desktop app.

Android on the other hand has a completely different approach, it took a lot longer to understand and get productive with. You can do a lot more with it, but it's definitely a bit odd.

I've also written a couple of my own iPhone apps, one of them quite cool (Sudoku Grab) which was featured by Apple for a couple of weeks and one of them just a silly game to learn open gl. They make enough to justify the amount of time I put into developing them and the amount of money I've spent on marketing (approx 0). I chose the iPhone platform to develop against simply because it was the one I felt most at home programming against.

However, my money would be on the Android platform becoming dominant - it's going to have a few issue, device fragmentation being the biggest one.

What amuses me is how no one seems to have learned any lessons from the past. I remember working during the dot com boom and a typical conversation was "There's billions of people in the world on the internet - we just need 1% of them to use our website, that's just 1 person in every 100! We're going to be rich!".

I actually had someone telling me exactly the same thing about the app store the other day "there's millions of iPhones....."

All the diagnosis information and messages are presented through the Google Webmaster Tools UI, not through email. There is an option in Webmaster Tools to forward messages to email, but this is opt-in.

You have a point though...there are lots of "from google" false emails floating around. As you know it's a tough problem to solve :/

This is a great service. Google should set up an opt-in email notification as well.

It helps the webmasters build better sites and teaches them to check the Google website tools that allow them to groom their site for best indexing on Google. That's great.

Webmaster Tools has opt-in email notification. Here are details: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/to-make-webmaster-tools-message-center.html

The "Malware details" feature (mentioned in the article), however, doesn't send you any notifications just yet.

the few ways that do exist typically involve f'n over everyone else, and you ending up in jail at some point.

So who did Bill Gates fuck over?

(he has been arrested tho)

Did you mean http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/fetch-as-googlebot-and-malware-details.html ? Your link got garbled by some evil force...

Oh, man... corrected by the expert himself... http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule11.htm [cornell.edu] So, a Rule 11 motion simply means that the opponent may be sanctioned for breaking any other rule, if deemed appropriate, correct? If so, what exactly was the sanction for, and if it goes through, what implications might it have outside of this case?

The Rule 11 motion was based on the deliberate false statements of fact contained in the RIAA's motion. My Declaration of Ray Beckerman in opposition enumerates, in detail, the false statements, and the true facts.

Forget the POS software and whether it was secure or not.. looks like Wal-Mart did not follow some basic security practices

According to this blog:

housed complete backup copies of transaction logs on network-connected UNIX servers, which included at least four years’ worth of unencrypted credit card numbers, cardholder names and expiration dates

used the same usernames and passwords across every Wal-Mart store nationwide

And ofcourse, the intrusion could be traced back to the VPN account of a system administrator who had left the company but his account was not shut down (the report does not implicate the employee)

---

Personally I think, Moore's Law will run out somewhere the early 2020s, and have blogged about what such a computer might be specced as.

The RIAA types shoot at anyone who dares question copyright these days. The PFF (an industry-funded EFF knock-off group) has been going after people like William Patry, the former top Google lawyer and copyright law expert, these days.

You may remember them from back when they were badmouthing the judge in Capitol v. Thomas, even though they receive major funding from one of the plaintiffs in that lawsuit. They didn't bother to disclose that to the reporter, which is why there's that update at the top of the page.

Ray Beck[er]man has been fighting an uphill battle against the recording industry for years, and it's past time he got a bit more recognition for his efforts. A lot of people don't appreciate that every time one of the RIAA's outrageous tactics receives even limited support in a court of law, that tactic will inevitably make its way into normal corporate practice. This struggle is about a lot more than alleged theft of music. It's about abuse of the legal system by corporations and individuals with deep pockets as they enforce their will on average people by threatening to bankrupt them in court if they dare to fight back against blatantly unfair practices. I have great respect for Ray Beck[er]man. We need a thousand more like him.

Thank you, hyades1. Much appreciated. You are so right about this being an "abuse of the legal system by corporations... with deep pockets". I wrote an article for the ABA's Judges Journal, last year, about that very subject : "Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless : Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations". I am so grateful for the fine lawyers who have joined me in this struggle, fighting for principle.

Would I be a bad person if I were to suggest that this would be a perfect time to upsell Time Capsules to worried Snow Leopard customers?

Yes, because Time Machine is silently deleting user's data, also!

http://rondam.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-machine-time-bomb.html

(I am not running Snow Leopard yet, but mentioned this bug to a friend who upgraded and was playing around with hard drives, and indeed, he discovered that he lost most of his backups for the year!)

• Stallman refers to EMACS virgins, specifically "women who had not been introduced to EMACS" along with the advice that "relieving them of their virginity" was some sort of sacred duty for members of "The Church of EMACS".

As a vi user, I too find this terribly offensive...

"Now, the question becomes: is this a good thing at all?"

No, it's stupid.

The slaughter will continue until play improves.

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/05/coddling-players.html

I'm sure that, as usual, it will be the taxpayers picking up the tab. Hopefully the final result will work out better than Grove Parc Plaza, at least.

On one hand, I want to say, "The State of NY are insensitive clods to let a few dollars' worth of ads be the justification for taking away her unemployment benefits."

But, on the other hand, maybe it shouldn't be the state's responsibility to subsidize those who can't make enough through their chosen occupation/hobby. I would totally quit my current job to sit around and post Slashdot comments all day whilst receiving a weekly $405 check from the state.

Also, I found this bit in TFA amusing:

Earlier this year Karin--a 2008 graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law who asked that her last name not be published

Oh really? I wonder how many Karin's graduated from the UoV law school in 2008 and now live in St. Louis? A quick Google search or two reveals that this is her Linked-In page. She uses her initials "KMCA" on the blog mentioned TFA (STL Meal Deals) and her full name is Karin McAnaney.

Not sure why this is marked as troll.

I get the biggest kick out of the pro-medicare, anti-national health care people.

For anyone interested in what and where the blog in question is: http://stlmealdeals.blogspot.com/. It is not law related, it has to do with restaurant deals in the St Louis area which is where she recently relocated to. Reference: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/stl-jobwatch/uncategorized/2009/10/re-located-to-st-louis-nyc-lawyer-learns-the-price-of-honesty/

Ah, that incident. I love that, because it clearly shows exactly which side the problem is on. See this for the finer details. Most importantly is this part, from from Stallman himself:

The cult of the Virgin of Emacs is simply intended as a joke about the cult of the Virgin Mary. I assure anyone who perceived derogatory meanings in it that I did not intend them.

So what really happened is Stallman made a (admittedly unfunny) joke about religion, and even after he calmly and maturely explained their error to them, whiny 'feminist' idiots continued to take it out of context and act like it was evidence that the leader of the free software movement is some evil rape advocate, when he is, at most, sorely lacking in social skills.

The problem with feminism these days is that it is far too much like a religion. There's the vast majority who are just in it to fit in with other people like them or because that's how they've been raised, who will put up a bit of obligatory moral outrage when they have to but not really do anything of note. There's the minority that's absolutely fucking batshit insane who are worked into a righteous fury over most of modern society, and will do things of note, but you'll certainly wish they didn't. And the crumbs that are left over constitute the bit that are actually good people and have taken from their belief system more than just hatred and disgust at the world.

Are you seriously going to sit there and argue that open source is a sheer meritocracy with a straight face? Okay. Here are 4 examples:

• Ruby on Rails sexism.
• Mark Shuttleworth refers to Linux as being “hard to explain to girls”. Ensuing flap is brutal.
• DrupalCon Paris homepage objectifies women. Although to be fair, the organizers made changes in response to pressure.
• Stallman refers to EMACS virgins, specifically "women who had not been introduced to EMACS" along with the advice that "relieving them of their virginity" was some sort of sacred duty for members of "The Church of EMACS".

That's the result of a 5 minute google search.

I think the lack of female involvement in projects is actually the cause of the sexism, not the other way around.

So maybe if more women actually bothered to get involved, it wouldn't be considered an all boys club and comments like these wouldn't be made.

How about Richard Stallman's completely bizarre behaviour at GCDS this year -- and his even more bizarre response (completely avoiding the key question -- twice!) to the complainer:

http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard-stallman.html
http://www.osnews.com/story/21803
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-Leadership-and-Sexism.htm (Slashdot got a mention here, ha ha ha)

Possibly Stallman needs to revamp his Free Software Song to include his behaviour.

• Ruby on Rails sexism.
• Mark Shuttleworth refers to Linux as being “hard to explain to girls”. Ensuing flap is brutal.
• DrupalCon Paris homepage objectifies women. Although to be fair, the organizers made changes in response to pressure.
• Stallman refers to EMACS virgins, specifically "women who had not been introduced to EMACS" along with the advice that "relieving them of their virginity" was some sort of sacred duty for members of "The Church of EMACS".

That's the result of a 5 minute google search.

I've been playing that POV-Ray game since 1992, but it's still got a lousy frame rate... often worse than 0.001 FPS.

Their first graph (which is in percentages, but they don't label the scale LOL) shows remarkably low rates of malware, and an alleged piracy rate (whatever that is) that is 4-10x higher.

Maybe they should check out http://garwarner.blogspot.com/

BSA+RIAA+MPAA=organizations that make up stories and wait for their fake "facts" to be reused by their legislative bought henchmen.

E

The Problem with Motion.

Your The Problem with Motion blog... might not be so bad, if you actually bothered to finish it. Instead all we have is claims with nothing to back it up. Please stop re-posting this blog spam until you finish writing the article in full... so we can at least attempt to understand what you are pushing. As they say, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof... or in this case, any proof at all. Maybe even put a disclaimer on the first page announcing you aren't going to finish writing it up at this time, instead of dragging people along, poking fun at some of the greatest minds in science / philosophy, and then ending it all in a rather conspiratorial way. Once the reader has already invested themselves into several pages, it is quite a let down to not even hear what the hell it is you are on about.

Journalism is bullshit, journalists cannot be trusted and they never report the truth unless the truth means monetary gain.

Without journalists like Woodward and Bernstein, the Watergate scandal would have gone largely unnoticed and swept under the rug. It was primarily they who uncovered the conspiracy aspect of it:

A journalist named Sam Bannath uncovered a corruption scandal in Cambodia which resulted in the prime minister ordering investigations.

Several reporters were arrested for uncovering another scandal. Reporting government corruption in an environment where you're likely to be arrested doesn't sound like "bias" or "profiteering" to me.

It was journalists who brought Jack Abramoff's cons to the public's attention.

Journalism as a profession is not "bullshit", and there are many more stories of journalists doing work like the above. The shitty journalists are the ones toiling away at sensationalist "news" outlets like Fox, and it doesn't help that with 24-hour news channels and the web, media outlets are expected to churn out headlines nonstop, which generally leads to low-quality nonsense, often senstationalist as you put it, just to remain competetive. But that is a function of the employer, not of journalism as a trade.

...from the baby-boomer generation. Catapulting cargo into orbit, eh? This is so absurd as to be laughable. But this is what you get from thinking inside the box. You can only think in terms of what's in the box. Does anybody really think that humanity is going to colonize the solar system with such painfully primitive technologies as rockets, space slingshots, and solar sails? Isn't it time that we start thinking outside the box? Isn't it time that we start questioning our most ingrained assumptions in physics so that we can find real solution to the space propulsion and energy production crises? I think so.

Take motion, for example. Physicists think that they understand motion but they really don't. All they got are equations that describe observations. Ask any physicist why two particles in relative inertial motion stay in motion and all you get is a bunch of nonsense mixed with ignorance and self-deception. Some will say nothing is needed and that Newton proved it centuries ago. Others will say that momentum keeps them moving. Still others will tell you that physics is not about the why of things but the how. It's annoying, really.

Yeah. With carp like this, is it any wonder that we are still in the dark ages when it comes to space propulsion? If physicists could truly grok motion, they would understand that it is a causal phenomenon and that, as a result, we are immersed in energy, lots and lots of it. A reevaluation of our understanding of the causality of motion leads to the inescapable conclusion that we are immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles. Soon, we will use the lattice for both propulsion and clean energy production. We will have levitating vehicles that can go almost anywhere at tremendous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring any damage due to inertial effects. Floating cities, earth to Mars in hours, New York to Beijing in minutes... That is the future of energy and travel.

My advice to all policy shapers and decision makers in the energy production and global transportation arena is this: take a careful look at the writing on the wall and prepare yourselves for the coming changes. The future is here.

The Problem with Motion.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cloud provider" as such but Google App Engine has always been replicated across datacenters.

Duh. I have two examples to offer:

http://www.atomicinsights.blogspot.com/
http://totallysynthetic.com/blog/

Those specialist blogs could not be written by a journalist.

Cancer in vaccine http://rabbitholenews.blogspot.com/2008/05/merck-admits-cancer-virus-in-vaccines.html

And to I honestly don't think you thought about what you just posted. How is being paralyzed, and brain damage better than the flu?

Your solution of investing in the infrastructure is completely correct, but is a completely alien concept in modern business practices. Investment is a cost, and so by not investing you're cutting cost and maintaining profit.

AT&T's behavior is endemic in American business today, and has been for god, 20 - 30 years? The US frequently comes in near the bottom, and all too often, dead last when its infrastructure is compared to the other industrialized nations. If you just compare the modernized coast of China, it's infrastructure is better than the United States. Our broadband is horribly slow. Our cell phone system is antiquated and undeveloped. Our electrical system is overstretched and prone to brownouts. Since everyone else can't be "ahead of the curve," we're left with the unescapable conclusion, that we're behind it. We're way behind it when emerging economies are on par with us.

It's not just infrastructure. The auto makers are in collapse (with the notable exception of Ford) not only due to crushing healthcare costs due to retirees, but also because the lack of will to adapt to new trends and technologies. It's embarrassing that after getting their lunch ate by the Japanese back in the 70s when Detroit was turning out crap (in all fairness, American cars today very well made, and can compete in quality with anyone), that they let it happen again by placing all their eggs in the SUV basket while not just ignoring, but actively fighting fuel efficiency standards and slow walking the development of hybrids and all-electrics. Guess who owns that market now?

With electricity, we're told that our infrastructure doesn't suck, but yet a fucking squirrel can cut off 50 million people. Meanwhile we're told to deregulate to decrease costs, but instead we get market manipulation that actually increases costs. (It seems like we always forget why the regulation was put in place the first time, and then we have to repeated learn that companies will screw over the most people in worst possible way, thus harming all of us, all to increase profits.) Then when we do say that we're going to invest in a new electrical infrastructure, and do develop new technologies, we don't. The US is already lagging the world in green technology development.

We make nothing here, except except "exotic financial instruments," and we know how well those work. Yet, people wonder why this is is the second jobless "recovery" in a row. Real unemployment is at 17%, but hey, the Dow Jones Industrials have been on a steady rise since March, so everything is cool. Wages are down, unless you're to top 1%. The Chicago Fed reported that the US has the most unequal wealth distribution of any OCED country. We have government that won't pass reform that 65% of the public wants, because it would hurt the megacorp that bought politician.

We've been asleep at the switch for too damn long, and now we're over the cliff.

When Obama came in and was talking about reform, and infrastructure investment, and new technology investment, I thinking that it was about damn time. Yet, we're not getting it. Instead we get "too big to fail." None of these promises are playing out like he said, because the entrenched interests, and yet you can't vote for the Republicans, because they simply deny there's a problem.

Goddamn we suck.

no comment

1) My post begins with "if we wake up tomorrow...". Ever heard of conditional sentences?
2) You missed all the fun. Google has announced the Chrome OS project back in July, please crawl out of your cave/bunker already.
3) That is not required; being unable to install a different browser just because the user wants to install it is enough.

Simply by applying the standards upheld at Nuremberg.

"...To give a peace prize to the commander-in-chief of a war machine now churning its way through the populations of three countries (Iraq/Af-Pak), with innumerable black ops, lightning raids and drone shots on the side .... to a man who even as we speak is deciding just how he wants to kill even more civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan ... a man who has enthusiastically embraced as "an extraordinary achievement" one of the most heinous and barbaric acts of military aggression since Hitler rolled across the border into Poland ... a man who blusters about leaving "all options on the table," including the use of mass-murdering nuclear weapons, to bully other nations into compliance with American wishes ... to give a peace prize to such a man, while all over the world, there are men and women who have devoted their entire lives to non-violence and reconciliation, many of them suffering imprisonment, torture and ruin for their efforts ... well, like I said, it's beyond words.

But it's good to see that the spirit of arms merchant Alfred Nobel -- purveyor and profiteer of death and destruction -- is being honored so perfectly with today's award..."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1856-well-nobel-was-the-inventor-of-dynamite-after-all.html

"Almost no one will acknowledge the single, fundamental truth about Barack Obama, the truth of greatest and most terrifying consequence:

Barack Obama is a war criminal.

Many facts overwhelmingly and conclusively compel this judgment, and no other. Not because I say so, but because an honest application of the relevant language of international law, as well as of the Nuremberg Principles, necessitates the conclusion."

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/10/depraved-obscene-absurdities.html

Oh! My Surprise! "WAR IS PEACE!"
Barack Obama just used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to reiterate his threats against Iran.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Building-a-World-that-Gives-Life-to-the-Promise-of-Our-Founding-Documents/

That's change you can deceive in.