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Or the Dangerous Denver Diminutive Robot incident.

You meant Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi doesn't exist? Or that he was never suspected of anything? True he wasn't actually arrested, but his visa was revoked and he's being deported.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. There is a lot of backtracking going on over that. "He's going to be deported; oh wait, maybe not".

"Now, it seems that the man is completely innocent of any wrongdoing."

The police also water cannoned a number of suspected bombs that turned out to be nothing. When I heard the reports of "other bombs" being water cannoned I knew it was the normal over protection.

Yeah, I realized the wording of those reports was completely clueless. I hardly think the procedures were "over protection", but clearly all that was being done was figuratively poking stuff with a long long stick to see if it would blow up - in an abundance of caution - SOP.

Actually, no, fascism is not a right-wing school of thought. I really don't have time to go through the rounds on this argument all over again, but fascism is really rather centrist.

Voting with your dollars works!

Unless of course it gets you arrested instead. GoDaddy would probably be thrilled if they could have people arrested for transferring domains to another registrar if too many people try to do so at once -- and don't be surprised if some future version of DMCA/SOPA/FUBAR actually includes such a provision, or at least language which can be twisted that way. Face it, folks, they're not going to quit pushing.

Then by your argument loan sharking and preying on the elderly with scams should be 100% legal, after all they should know better, right? Ponzi schemes, pyramid scams, ALL of that should be legal, is that what you are advocating?

Because we have a long history in this country of protecting the most vulnerable from scams and this is EXACTLY what these are. These people are poor, probably can't pass a college entrance exam, and these groups prey on their misery and cause BOTH the student AND the US taxpayer misery, or do you think all those federal student loans that will NEVER be paid back just came from thin air?

I'm not allowed to say my snake oil will cure cancer, and we are starting to shut down the infomercial hucksters that likewise lied for a living, now it is time to shut down the paper mills. if they can't show at LEAST a 15% placement rate? Then they should be barred from ALL federal and state money PERIOD. If they can't even get 1 in 5 an entry level job in the field they have supposedly been trained in it would be better to use that money more wisely rather than pissing it down a rathole. These guys use every scam and high pressure tactic in the book to prey on the poor and those caught in dead end jobs with no way out, its high time we stop allowing federal and state tax dollars be given to scammers.

The newly named service includes video games, so "flix" would be a bad choice.

Game, movie, what is difference?

I find them rather nice looking. We have large tracts of windmills in sections of northeastern Oregon - in areas of flat grassland much like the area being discussed in this article. Driving by the windmills in Oregon, I think they're quite pretty. Maybe it's just the knowledge of how they help the environment that makes them look nice to me.

Well, maybe not exactly "helping" the stuff that lives in the environment. Driving-by doesn't give you a complete picture.

http://writing.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979140882

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8579747/Wind-farm-forced-to-close-after-complaints-over-the-noise.html

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3836

So beached whales, noise, millions of birds dead. Doesn't sound like "helping the environment" to me.

Wind turbines generate a very low frequency "thumping" noise as the blades pass by the tower. Frankly, I'd prefer to live next to a nuclear reactor than next to these "green" power generators.

This was an assassination, asshole. Education about gun safety had nothing to do with it.

Indeed. This is what happens when you have prominent candidates for major political office throwing ad hominem attacks at their opponents, telling people the world will end unless they win, and advocating violent insurrection if they don't win. At least three Tea Party candidates advocated actions like what happened today:

• Richard Behney
• Stephen Broden
• Sharron Angle

It's inevitable. If your rhetoric involves implying that violent acts are an acceptable means of political pressure, some percentage of people will believe your bulls**t, and eventually, somebody will take it too far. It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to act like these Tea Party idiots acted in this election season. When you act that way, events like those of today are what you get.

If there is any justice in the world, the three political candidates above will be arrested promptly and charged with treason.

As far back as the Franklin Roosevelt administration, in 1933, when it looked for a minute like the US government might actually start putting people ahead of corporate interests, a group of men, owners of some of our largest industries, including the grandfather of George W. Bush plotted to over throw and replace him with a pro-corporate Fascist regime.

Except FRD and Benito Mussolini copied each other. Some question whether FDR's New Deal was Based on Fascism. Il Duce wrote FDR with appreciation and congradulated him for winning his 1932 election.

Falcon

Yes, they can.

Secretary of State blocking voter registration in California.

Making Votes Count in Florida

This is a classic case of what's good for 88% of the population being exported to all people. In fact, if you are right-handed (88% of us) then your left-hemisphere is dominant and you do not benefit from multitasking. However, if you are left-handed (12% of humans), then your right-hemisphere (the image side) is dominant and it is perfectly acceptable for you to multitask. Why? The left hemisphere of the brain (the language side) is optimized to process linear sequential information. In right-handed individuals, the linear side is dominant. The left side is optimized to do one thing at a time. If a right-handed person is in the middle of a task and they break that off to do something else, they must return to the beginning when they resume the interrupted task. In left-handed people, the right-hemisphere (the image side) is dominant. That hemisphere is optimized to process visual-simultaneous information. Breaking off one task while in the middle of another task is possible. The left-handed/right-brained individual can resume where they left off, thereby making multitasking efficient. This is why, for example, we see left-handed people way over-represented in the presidential contests. Currently, both Barack Obama and John McCain are left handed. So, while I'm sure this article is statistically accurate, it glosses over some complexities that have only come to light in past few years.

If your only concerned with the morality of it, then I guess you have no problem with the immunity as long as you can say bad telecoms.

We aren't heading down the same path as the KGB or even previous US administrations have. We had a clear threat, someone mistakenly thought that was a way to protect against it. It wasn't and nevr has been claimed to of been about just any random sob. It has always been about people with connections to terrorist or suspected terrorist and the situation was more specifically narrowed down to only in situation where one part of the call was from over seas. That is in no way similar to the operations of the KGB or US administrations before 1968 when the first US wire tap laws regulating the government were created as a response to Berger V New York in 1967.

In fact, the fourth circuit court has actually ruled in United States v. Truong in 1980 that requiring a warrant for a wiretap in matters of foreign inteligence would create an situation that would "unduly frustrate" the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. There is quite a bit more to it then that si I would suggest looking it up if you have time. Here is a quick list article that has a few of the details and makes a pretty good case for the warrantless taps.

That doesn't settle for sure whether the president actually had the authority to do it or not. The question doesn't really seem to be if the president had the authority to spy on Americans for matters of foreign inteligence and national security but rather if congress is able to limit those powers. It just provides a case where existing telecom immunity according to existing law should already kick in. The main differences is whether or not they have to spend money in providing a preliminary defense before stateing what they claim to be obvous and how many times that must happen before it is settled. I personally think they should have the immunity not because I can somehow justify what they did but because someone in the government had justified what they did which means they were acting in the interest of the US when they complied. It is more of a matter of will they be there willing to help if we really do need them or will everything be challenged in a court exposing secrete programs (yes congress has secrete programs)and prolonging it to a point that the urgency is no longer present. I would hate to have something happen that could have been prevented if we could have gotten a tap and information during the time we spent in a court arguing that the warrant or emergency program was just. That might be a stretch of a what if scenario but I would rather impeach and administration then launch a barrage of lawsuits against companies who for all they knew at the time were cooperating with something that was legal and legit. We already know the lawsuits are specifically designed for the purposes of gathering information about the programs and screwing bush. It isn't like anyone suing is actually blaming the telecoms, they are just looking for political ammunition.

I think all of these content-generating sites have some form of revenue-sharing..

HuPages: http://hubpages.com/
Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/
Gather: http://www.gather.com/

I recently wrote an article on the beauty of giving my friend's kindgartener her very own copy of the Edubuntu 6.10 LiveCD. In a nutshell, she loved it & is getting lots of use out of it. Her parents love it since there's nothing to install. Then again, this isn't the normal type of gift you give 5-6 year old kids but I prefer to give kids books or learning materials instead of video games & dollies (mostly since the human brain is SO much of a sponge at that stage of development that, imho, if they're not learning, you're handcuffing them for the rest of their life). The (obvious) benefit of a Linux distro is cost but a side benefit is that you're also teaching them a completely different OS (which is like teaching your kids 2 speech languages at once)!

Having said that, though, you have to be careful how much you allow them to play on the computer. I'm a very BIG believer in that kids should be outside playing & interacting as this develops a healthy appreciation for nature as well social skills. You see, I have a BIG BEEF with how are children are being raised (here in the US), you never see kids playing out in the streets anymore (something I looked forward to daily when I was growing up). Instead, parents drop a dvd into the dvd player, buy their kids xbox'es and/or allow their kids too much time on the computer. Sure, it's borne out of the need for 2-income households these days (meaning no time to be w/the kids) but I'm very worried for our future leaders. This behavior might (but hopefully won't) lead to our nation's future leaders having ZERO SOCIAL SKILLS! I mean, kids don't even know how to share these days, how are they supposed to learn diplomacy & pass good laws when our lives are in their hands in the future?

In the end, a healthy mix of educational software (there's other Linux distros like eduMorphix, etc.), books & social interactivity with children their age are the best "tools" for your pre-school.

Buena Suerte!

I read a book called "Shakespeare's Plots" and that's where my information came from. I will agree that Shakespeare did not ever say his plots were designed like that. We inferred it. I also think there will in infiite set of variations on the topic as we, in essence, dissect the workings of Shakespeare's brain.

Glad you liked the post. Please now go and vote for my novel at Gather.com

thank you,

Tom

Developers always spend a lot of time worrying about the technical aspects of Game Writing. In fact, coding is the easy part. Storytelling, the art of making us care about the game play and become engaged in the story, is the central problem. Although developers spend most of their time learning how to make cool graphics, they should learn how to tell a good story.

For example, Gather.com is running a novel writing contest right now. First prize is $5,000.00 and publication by Simon & Schuster. The central problem with the majority of the entries? Lack of storytelling skills.

Here is an example that does have a story and that has been highly rated:

The Butcher of Leningrad

Here is an article that attempts to address the problem of:
What Is A Story

Anyone who has set off to write a novel or even a short story will eventually confront this question: what is a story? There are many books available, those that were published in the past fifty years and those that more recently entered print.

As a budding author, you may commence to write a story or what you think is a story by trying to relate an anecdote that you heard. Unless you are quite fortunate, this approach does not yield very good fruit. The explanation of why this doesn't is as mysterious as the entire writing process. One cannot go to a single place and find the answer, as one could hope to do with an encyclopedia. Rather, one must investigate the answer and attempt to get close to the solution.

Ernest Hemingway's Advice: "Don't Describe, Invent"

I began my life as a writer back in 1983, when I was 18 years old. I first began by reading Ernest Hemingway's "First 49" short stories. I was amazed at how effective they were. I dissected them sentence by sentence, trying to figure out by the arrangement of clauses, the control over concrete verbs and the avoidance of adjectives what he had accomplished. I did not arrive at an obvious answer and in fact just got more confused. I turned to the many biographies and analytical works that strove to understand what Hemingway was trying to achieve. I accomplished the same thing I would have if I had just read each of the stories over and over a hundred times. I achieved a critical close reading by reading these biographies and critical analyses.

More importantly, though, I heard related a lot of the comments Hemingway himself made about his writing life. He was always making pronouncements that I did not understand and that frustrated me. One of the first ones I heard was: "Don't describe, Invent." Well, I thought. What the devil does that mean? It took me about two years of my own writing to start to understand what he was meaning by this cryptic comment. Hemingway was describing the process of story writing. When a writer tries to create a story out of something that actually happened to them, they are apt to describe what actually happened. That might work except that a person's imagination--driven by their subconscious--is always limited by what actually happened to them. Their imagination can go no further than the real events. If the writer does not base their story on a real event, then what we just described (description) is not an option. If the writer makes up a story from whole cloth, then they are not describing, they are inventing. In this situation, the imagination--driven by the subconscious--is not hampered by the real events that happened. Instead, the mind is free to live in the story, to make it up as it goes along. This is the first secret that a writer must learn. Usually a writer will not get around to inventing stories until they have used up all the stories they know or have heard. So, it isn't until you use up all the crap you know that you start to really engage your imagination and write some good stuff.

Hemingway's Iceberg Principle

Hemingway was full of these little nuggets of wisdom. I am fort

What law did he break? And why hasn't Senator Charles Schumer been arrested for making a public press release about the exact same thing in February 2005?

According to this Northrop Grumman security expert, "Bruce Schneier, a security expert who has done significant work for the US government, wrote about the exact same flaw in 2003".

So please, why would you be compelled to vote "guilty" on the jury?

I encourage all other security professionals to do the same.

I'm the web architect of gather.com and we use an invisible iframe as a pipe for our AJAX stuff instead of XMLHttpRequest. This works in a uniform way across all browsers we've tested it on with - even way old ones. The Javascript is 1.0-level stuff and IFRAME is standard since HTML 4. I wonder why more people don't use this approach? I know people hate IFRAMEs, but the ones we use are invisible and 0x0 pixels, so they're little more than an offscreen paint buffer (like BitBlt! :) ) The general approach we're taking is described in this years-old posting on Apple Developer Connection. Anyone else have experience with this approach?