Domain: blogspot.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to blogspot.com.
Comments · 20,258
-
Re:Threatening plurality?
I'm pretty sure nobody in the US or continental Europe gives a crap about cricket. But sure, the countries with RHD...
Now, normally I'd agree with you, but I imagine that the Dutch have a vastly increased interest in cricket since the day they beat the poms at their own game.
-
Re:Threatening plurality?
This.
Don't trust the BBC to be impartial, fair or balanced, because it is none of these things. Everything it broadcasts reflects the viewpoint of the British Establishment. I trust it to provide me with weather reports, and that's about it. I resent having to pay for it.
Biased BBC has the definitive guide.
-
Re:It's like AD&D
Sometimes, it's not just about fun: http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-not-just-about-fun.html
-
ScrumMaster? Isn't that an official WankWord?
ref: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-slightly-less-awful-resume.html
I think you and your team should start focusing on developing software for the client you have to write the software for, i.o.w. back to square 1 of Software Engineering. You and your team seem to have moved yourselves into an organizational mess which takes more time to manage than the actual software development.
Mind you, your client doesn't give a hoot HOW you created the software, which language it is written in, or that you eat 1001 bags of blue M&Ms during the making, all they care about is if the software does what they need it to do. So you should go write that software, how is up to you, but if that 'how' process is actually taking more time and energy than the software itself, you should perhaps abandone that process you called 'agile' and go back to Common Sense Software Engineering principles, like defining what functionality should be implemented and actually DO that.
-
Re:The eternal September 11
[Citation needed], big time.
http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/video-acorn-buses-leaving-arlen-specter.html
You may also want to check out what happened at the Town Hall meeting in St Louis. Bad stuff all around.
-
Oracle Should Hold on to the Hardware
Oracle must hold on to the hardware division at all costs. The financial future of the computer industry is in hardware, not software. Software will be extremely cheap because necessity is about to unleash a revolution in software construction methodology that will turn every computer user into a programmer whether they know it or not. The future of profits in this industry is going to be strictly about who has the baddest, fastest and most energy-efficient parallel processors. The software will just sprout like mushrooms.
The painful (and scary to many) transition to parallel computing and the crisis that has ensued does not bode well for the status quo. Who would want to spend millions or billions converting legacy software into multi-threaded code only to find out afterwards that multithreading is not the part of the future of parallel computing. The baby boomer generation (the Turing Machine worshippers) whose bankrupt ideas on computing led to this cisis must be forcibly retired even if it creates an uproar. This will allow new minds and new ideas to flourish so that the industry can leap beyond last century's flawed paradigms and forge a new future.
Oracle has an unprecedented opportunity to make a killing by doing the right move. Sun's hardware engineers are a talented bunch and it would be a dumb idea to let them go. But if the sale goes through, I hope HP realizes the importance of hardware and immediately start dumping loads of cash into another big-chip parallel processing project (and please do not resurrect the Rock project).
Having said that, the solution to the parallel programming crisis that will revolutionize computer programming means building a new type of computer to support a radically different programming model. There is no escaping this. Read How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis for more on this topic.
-
Re:It's a new app...
There's a funny story about an iPhone that actually flew away from its owner!!!
http://pieroxy.blogspot.com/2009/08/news-from-missouri-my-iphone-flew-away.html
-
Re:Much as I like Slackware...
I think the statement about the generic kernel only refers to installation on nonstandard drives (eg. dmraid with various fakeRAIDs). If you stay in the realm of
/dev/hd# /dev/sd# and common controllers interfaces like Compaq Smart Array for instance, you won't need an initrd to boot your kernel.
And if you find the Slackware way (which, IMO is the most generic approach) cumbersome, pray explain how to boot an nVidia MediaShield fakeRAID RAID5 partition without an initrd for instance, as I would be very interested to hear it. I recently had to do the latter, and I found that using initrd with good old Slack was a breeze, since Slackware leaves everything you need at your fingertips, along with a *detailed* README of how to do it. Didn't even have to google to figure out how to craft an initrd. -
Re:Schedules are important.
That works out well for everyone, so you'll never see it in action.
Actually, you can already see it in action. Ever been to Milwaukee? They've had a voucher program going on for several years. So far the difference in student achievement is negligible, meaning that students do about the same with or without vouchers. But I think most or all of the studies find that the parents are happier having the choice. IMO as long as the students are not doing worse with the vouchers, they should be available.
-
Why Slashdot fired Michael
January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot [blogspot.com], ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.
On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.
As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.
Michael suggested they all toast their plan with JÃgermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of JÃgermeister, needle in hand.
Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more JÃger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.
Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.
Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland [blogspot.com]. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of JÃger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.
The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the JÃgermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.
Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of JÃgermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.
Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from betwee
-
Why Slashdot fired Michael
January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot [blogspot.com], ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.
On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.
As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.
Michael suggested they all toast their plan with JÃgermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of JÃgermeister, needle in hand.
Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more JÃger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.
Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.
Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland [blogspot.com]. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of JÃger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.
The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the JÃgermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.
Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of JÃgermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.
Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from betwee
-
most criminals are stupid
http://www.dumbcriminals.com/
http://stupidcriminalfile.blogspot.com/A google search for stupid criminal returns around 1.5 million hits and a search for dumb criminal returns over 3.5 million.
-
Re:As an American...
It's called "football" in the entire world. Only people from the USA call it "soccer".
-
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming
Your emotive language aside, the UK emissions reduction target for 2050 puts CO2 output at the same level it was in 1849! For the US, a similar 80% reduction means a return to 1905 levels. How do you take this stuff seriously?
And now, let the modding down of my post begin...
-
Re:No...
Frighteningly indeed. Have a look at Biased BBC. It's where I found the following quote from veteran broadcaster Jeremy Paxton, which is very much on topic.
"People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago",
-
Clickies
-
Re:Poor choice for screensaver?
-
Re:Hang On
-
Re:Sure, but...
While I personally don't think that they're much of a deterrent,
Sometimes they are just an amusement.
My local Dunkin Donuts is about 60 feet by 30 feet and has, count 'em, 13 of those dark plastic ceiling bubbles. I think they should hold a contest and give out free donuts to anyone who can guess exactly how many of them actually contain a camera.
Oh, and the place has been robbed twice in the last year.
The only real solution to crime is an active deterrent, try installing one of these outside of Dunkin Donuts.
-
Re:re Lack of apps, developers?
They added a native SDK a couple months ago.
-
Re:Number each spotThis approach has been in place in Montreal for at least a decade. Each parking spot has labeled marker near it. You simply:
- park and lock your car, and remember the code on the labeled marker
- walk to the ticket machine (at most 1/2 block)
- pay with cash or credit, and keep the receipt in case of dispute
- walk away
A few interesting notes:
- It's very important to lock your car. Montreal used to be the car-theft capital of North America. People claim things are better now, but the island city is surrounded by "chop shops" where stolen cars are disassembled.
- The markers are set well away from the curb, to make room for snow removal machinery. Here's a picture of a marker, showing the parking enforcement rules (in French, then written smaller in English in order to annoy the once-dominant English minority, that is a very long and bitterly contested story).
- The curb itself is covered with a heavy steel band, for the snow removal machinery to scrape right against it without damaging the curb.
- Notice that I've mentioned snow removal machinery twice already? There's a draconian system in place after a winter storm: crews show up to tow away cars that are parked in snow-removal zones (residents are notified through temporary signs or through a system of red lights), and leave the cars parked elsewhere. The cars are not impounded, but owners have to go hunting for their cars. The whole process is described here.
- The snowblower was invented in Montreal, not surprisingly. Irate workmen whose job of removing snow by hand was thus threatened used to sabotage the first machines by placing iron bars in snowbanks
Alejo
-
Re:Number each spotThis approach has been in place in Montreal for at least a decade. Each parking spot has labeled marker near it. You simply:
- park and lock your car, and remember the code on the labeled marker
- walk to the ticket machine (at most 1/2 block)
- pay with cash or credit, and keep the receipt in case of dispute
- walk away
A few interesting notes:
- It's very important to lock your car. Montreal used to be the car-theft capital of North America. People claim things are better now, but the island city is surrounded by "chop shops" where stolen cars are disassembled.
- The markers are set well away from the curb, to make room for snow removal machinery. Here's a picture of a marker, showing the parking enforcement rules (in French, then written smaller in English in order to annoy the once-dominant English minority, that is a very long and bitterly contested story).
- The curb itself is covered with a heavy steel band, for the snow removal machinery to scrape right against it without damaging the curb.
- Notice that I've mentioned snow removal machinery twice already? There's a draconian system in place after a winter storm: crews show up to tow away cars that are parked in snow-removal zones (residents are notified through temporary signs or through a system of red lights), and leave the cars parked elsewhere. The cars are not impounded, but owners have to go hunting for their cars. The whole process is described here.
- The snowblower was invented in Montreal, not surprisingly. Irate workmen whose job of removing snow by hand was thus threatened used to sabotage the first machines by placing iron bars in snowbanks
Alejo
-
blog: Rosemary Port in the flesh
-
Re:Easy
You may find this site interesting:
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/
Some of it is a little overblown, but my background is biochem, and I'd say that in the whole, they are right. (See note from a skeptic at http://snhbw.blogspot.com/2009/02/update-on-soy-online-service.html)
Dr.Mercola is a snake-oil salesman, but even so lists a number of good studies: http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm
Soy-based baby formula is probably a major cause of plant allergies in adults (and likely of colic in babies); soy protein is known to be a broad-spectrum allergen. I personally know someone who, after a binge on toasted soy nuts, became allergic to practically all plant proteins. It happened almost immediately after the only time she ever ate lots of soy nuts, so there's little doubt about the trigger.
-
Re:News for nerds?
As a fellow nerd I have to tell you that some critical parts of our computer technology these days was built with the help of these 'drugs', or more clearly psychedelics and more precisely LSD. See: http://open.salon.com/blog/hal_m/2009/07/09/lsd_inventor_hofmanns_letter_to_steve_jobs and http://heroux.blogspot.com/2006/03/this-is-your-computer-on-lsd.html for a couple of good starting points for you too look at.
What I hear from it's a great way to boost you way of analytic, mathematical and engineering way of thinking. Now, I'm not saying we should promote use of any of these substances, but I'm saying we should aknowledge them and use them in a controlled way for the benefit of human kind. Psychedelics can unlock huge potentials in human beings, why are we denying this still ? The native people of different regions of the world have known this for centuries. Too bad we are still being led by medical companies and other huge colloborations of humans who like their materialistic ways of lifes too much to really let the human race take off.
-
Re:No thank you
Mmmmhhh... Tits with tits! (No shocker pic. Rather nice.)
-
Re:Bloody difficult.
And yet trans people can compete at an Olympic level if they meet specific requirements by way of medical status.
So let me ask a bigger question. Why does it matter?Keep in mind that I ask as a trans woman myself... Why does it matter what her genotype is?
There is no way that I could compete at that level with any of those women regardless of my biological history, and after 5 years on hormones and androgen blockers, I'm much closer to the strength of a cis woman than anything else, and I know many who are stronger than I.This effect is only enhanced when someone has SRS... testosterone production drops to near zero, and muscle density and power follows it down.
So... the question is... So What?
For further perspective, check this article: http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/08/black-female-athlete-dominates.html. This is not an isolated incident, this is a common accusation in sports.
-
no glibc, no x11 is the problem.
Android is a complete linux distribution that uses a different Window Manager and has a well defined consistent Object Oriented development platform.
Different window manager? It doesn't even run X-windows. Between not having X11 and not using glibc (trying building shared library for google android), means you can't even begin to compile an existing Unix GUI application for Android. That is the bigger gripe to me than if it shipped with all the normal programs I expect with a complete Linux distribution. With a Linux Standard Base distribution, download the source, compile, and run, not with Android.
-
Re:My method of HDD disposal
why use magnets for interesting things???
http://ptcpaidproof.blogspot.com/ -
Re:The bigger picture
It is my understanding that they transcode to FLV, but still have the h264 availiable.
Isn't FLV a container format? It's not a codec. The videos should all be in h.264 or h.263.
-
Re:The bigger picture
It is my understanding that they transcode to FLV, but still have the h264 availiable.
-
Nothing Can Move in Spacetime
No, science adjusts models to accommodates new data
You mean, for example, how physicists invent superstitious nonsense like dark matter and dark energy to explain data that contradicts their pet theories (e.g., general relativity)? Of course not. That would be preposterous.
:-DBy the way, did any of you know that nothing can move in spacetime, by definition? Surprise! In Conjectures and Refutations, Sir Karl Popper (of falsifiability fame) called spacetime "Einstein's block universe in which nothing happens". Popper compared Einstein to good old Parmenides who, whith his devoted pupil Zeno, also maintained that nothing can move and that change was an illusion! And yet spacetime is the central model of modern cosmology. ahahaha...
Folks, the reason that gravity waves have not been found is simple: Einstein was wrong. Gravity is a nonlocal phenomenon and is instantaneous, just as Sir Isaac assumed centuries ago. This is the reason that Newtonian gravity is so accurate. Isn't it time for science to adjust the model to accomodate the data? I think so.
-
Too hot to handle
I think the reason touchscreen laptops have yet to take is that the average user isn't ready to make that leap. Mouse and Keyboard have been the setup of choice for personal computing since practically it's invention. How can you expect a user who trembles at the prospect of switching Microsoft Office 2003 to 07 to say, "Oh, this piece of technology will completely redefine the way I look at computing and input. Let's give it the ole' college try!" instead, users are taking baby steps towards input revolution, specifically by embracing the iphone and it's followers. It's an input revolution on a much smaller scale. When people start to realize how much better their computing lives will be after touchscreen becomes standard operating procedure, they'll fly off the shelves. We just need to have patience with user, that's all. http://ruleroftheinterwebs.blogspot.com/
-
precompiled at getdeb have no audio/video capabil
except those precompiled debs at gedeb dont give you av/vv capabilities yet. http://webupd8.blogspot.com/2009/08/pidgin-260-adds-voice-and-video.html#comment-15056475
-
Utilizing cell-phones as thin clients
I wrote this blog-post a while ago with the idea that the iPhone could be a potential thin client. Obviously there's no reason to limit it to one hardware manufacturer but I believe that enabling one to carry your personal data with you at all time and interface it through a server when visiting an office, working from home or any other location would be a great thing. http://garnser.blogspot.com/2009/07/iphone-next-potential-thin-client.html
-
Re:Slashkos
Of course, those who were born into poverty who have some sort of religious belief are significantly less likely to stay in poverty.
that's as full of shit as the "people who have strong religious beliefs have better surgical outcomes." It was an article of faith until someone actually looked at the figures, and religion had zero predictive value.
Oh yeah, there have been studies that show that many teenagers who become pregnant had access to birth control.
"Many" is not "most", or even "a statistically significant number." Ask Sarah Palin. On second thought, don't - she has two sets of rules - one for her and her kids (and other "good religious white folk") and another for "the rest of those trash."
Check out the stats - you'll see that the Repub states take up most of the top in teen birth rates, online porn use, divorce.rates, etc. http://lippard.blogspot.com/2009/06/republican-states-lead-in-divorce-teen.html. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27blow.html?_r=1
From the NY Times:
While conservatives fight to "defend" marriage from gays, they can't keep theirs together. According to the Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract, states that went Republican in November accounted for eight of the 10 states with the highest divorce rates in 2006.
Conservatives touted abstinence-only education, which was a flop, when real sex education was needed, most desperately in red states. According to 2006 data from the Guttmacher Institute, those red states accounted for eight of the 10 states with the highest teenage birthrates.
And, a study titled "Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?" that was conducted by Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor of business at Harvard Business School and published earlier this year in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that subscriptions to online pornography sites were "more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality" and in states where "more people agree that 'I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage.' "
The correlation between right-wing religion (abstinance only, promise rings, etc), teenagers having kids, and stupidity in general is pretty apparent from the stats.
-
Re:USA vs Europe
Here is a comparison of life expectancies between the US and Europe.
I guess it is based on bullshit data. For instance, Switzerland has a much higher life expentancy, see here. 80 years for men, 84 for women.
adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries
Why this adjustment ? Oh, to make data fit to your conclusion ? You live in a violent country, deal with it.
-
Re:Slashkos
And yes, at one point long ago, back probably before you were born, the United States used to pride itself on being the longest average lifespan in the world.
The United States still has the longest average life expectancy if you control for fatal injury rates. The actuarial statistics are misleading for the purposes of determining medical effectiveness. In essence, American medical life expectancy is at the top of the heap, but the OECD averages are brought down because people in the US have a relatively high probability of dying in vehicular accidents or being murdered when young compared to other industrialized countries. If a fatal injury does not end your life prematurely, you'll outlive your counterparts in the rest of the industrialized world. More on that here:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/07/per-capita-spending-and-life-expectancy.html
-
USA vs Europe
Here is a comparison of life expectancies between the US and Europe.
For unadjusted life expectancy, the U.S. ranks #14 out of 16 countries, but for the adjusted standardized life expectancy, (adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries) the U.S. ranks #1. -
The empires it department sucks!
here are my thoughts on the subject.
http://zeos386sx.blogspot.com/2005/11/repulicempires-it-department-sucks.html
not that any of this detracts from the awesomeness of episodes 4,5,6.
-
Pocket sized recon robots
iRobot Ember
-
Re:I'm sorry but
I started this post intending to post a lot of links to IPv6 enabled routers. I own a Linksys/cisco RVS4000 that supports IPv4, IPv6, and dualstack. I know other routers besides the Apple and 1 D-Link I could find must suppport it but apparently they don't feel the need to advertise that fact. 15 minutes of googling turned up nothing.
-
Re:Insane
Don't you mean their Verizon bill is going to suck?
I thought about making a Verizon joke, but since that also offer fiber service, which doesn't charge you per transferred byte, I was afraid the joke would be too confusing.
-
Re:Insane
Don't you mean their Verizon bill is going to suck?
-
Re:Real Reason for the Law
a summary of the parties and issues at play in the current election here: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/2009/07/all-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about.html
An excellent guide. Well done!
For real in-depth coverage (and I mean in depth) in English, check out Tobias Harris' blog here: http://www.observingjapan.com/
Ah yes: "In constituency X, conservative machine politician A leads conservative machine politician B. In constituency Y, conservative machine politician Q leads conservative machine politician P."
I was nodding off before I reached any "depth".
-
Re:Take off the tinfoil hat
MSNBC is fairly liberal, I personally can't stand Mathews but Madow is quite informative. MSNBC is about as far left-wing as, oh, CNN is right-wing.
Bullshit! I just showed you a video of a reporter who calls a Bush head with a Hitler mustache a "look-alike" and then calls an Obama made to look like Hitler "offensive". NBC is selling Obama merchandise for Pete's sake! (I tried to find a non-conservative source... BUT NO OTHER MEDIA OUTLET WILL REPORT IT!!!!! Kinda proves my fucking point, doesn't it?)
And it's not just what the media reports, but what it does NOT report is just as important. Take the townhalls. They'll show Democratic congressmen and operatives and Nancy Pelosi saying that these townhall protesters are paid by the insurance companies and bussed from town hall to town hall. Of course, this is not true, but the media is OK because they didn't say it, Nancy Pelosi did. And what they don't show or tell you about is the Democratic groups that are paid and bussing people from town hall to town hall. HERE is a video of ACORN leaving a town hall. Nor will they tell you that people are literally being paid to campaign for health care reform, like in Craigslist ad. Do you see that in the media? Nope, but it is EXACTLY what the Democrats are accusing the Republicans of doing. They are guilty of what they accusing the innocent of doing and the press ignores it. Would you considered union members organized and paid? Here is an article from HuffPo saying that Union members are organizing at town halls! See that in the media? Nope!
Seriously, with just the town hall stuff, I could go on for days with example after example of how Town Hall protesters are called terrorists, Nazi's, BrownShirts and all kinds of other names. They are accused of being Astroturfers, fake, paid, and so on when those that are doing the accusing are the ones that are the true astroturfers. And seriously, you think the press is fair to right wing?
Oh, and to your comment that there is no left wing Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh... you did say you knew who Rachel Maddow was, right? How about Keith Olbermann? Maybe Randy Rhodes? Katie Couric? Al Franking (now Senator Al Frankin... thanks to those hundreds of votes found in the truck of a Democrat poll workers car.... all for Frankin)... Need I go on?
Given what I've said in this comment along with the other comments, including the links, if you seriously think the media is fair or right wing, please, go see a doctor or something because there is seriously something wrong with you. No really, SERIOUSLY WRONG!
Or you are just being an asshole. So you are either psychotic, retarded or just an asshole. Either way, there's really no point in talking with you.
Good day, sir.
-
Re:Why I Hate All Programming Languages
Will the huge Minority-Report-touch-screen we'll all have in our homes be a result of this architecture you're describing or will it be a requirement for developing it?
Interesting that you should mention this because I wrote about it on my blog some time ago. Well, it was actually about Jeff Han's multi-touch screen technology, which is the same thing. So yes, I think it will be an ideal interface for the future of parallel programming.
Let me add that the main reason that compositional development tools have failed is that they are inherently algorithmic. What is needed is an implicitly parallel model.
-
Re:Is it me?
"Or are researchers really skimping on data sets these days? 500ish people in one area? Seriously since when did that constitute a valid data set to base an entire population of 330m people on?"
I'll say it again: That's the single dumbest thing you can say about polling results.
http://angrymath.blogspot.com/2009/02/interpreting-polls-angrymath-meditation.html
-
Re:Real Reason for the Law
If that happens it would be remarkable, given that the party (MinshutÅ) expected to win is a spin-off from the LDP. Like the LDP it consists of factions, and the two that are by far the largest back members (Hatoyama and Ozawa) who started off in the LDP. Better to think of it as LDP Lite.
Actually, whatever the faults of the DPJ (and they are legion), there is a great deal of value simply in changing ruling parties at all. The nearly unbroken rule is by now bad for Japan and bad for the LDP as well. They're so enmeshed with the bureaucracy (and the bureaucracy so politicized) that they really can't change themselves or the current system any more.
I wrote up a summary of the parties and issues at play in the current election here: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/2009/07/all-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about.html
For real in-depth coverage (and I mean in depth) in English, check out Tobias Harris' blog here: http://www.observingjapan.com/
ps. The Happiness Realization Party is really quite insane. They want preventative nukes and predict Atlantis will reappear in 2400 once the US (but, note, not Canada or Mexico) sinks into the ocean, at which point Martin Luther, Jesus and aliens from outer space will return to earth. That kind of thinking par for the course for a religion of course, but somewhat outside the mainstream for a political party. ds.
-
Re:URL Shortners Are Bad
They serve no purpose other than giving people a way to distribute malicious links.
I get around this by using the TinyURL Decoder script for Greasemonkey. It's explicitly designed to dynamically change shortened links back to the full-length originals, telling you exactly where they go without you having to visit the page itself.
There are only two disadvantages I've found. First, there is a marked delay before it actually decodes the URL, but that's unavoidable. I found the second when visiting the Katawa Shoujo Dev Blog. It seems for reasons related to limitations of Blogspot the link to the IRC server was encoded with TinyURL, because Blogspot wasn't happy with an irc:// link. Unfortunately, the decoder script decoded the URL producing a prompt from Firefox to open the link in an IRC client, then it somehow got re-encoded, the decoder script decoded it again, and I ended up in an infinite loop with Firefox opening up a new prompt every 10 seconds or so.
I managed to fix the second problem by blacklisting the site in TinyURL Decoder's preferences, and they seem to have since fixed the code on their end. But still, that was pretty fucking annoying.