Slashdot Mirror

Just remember, the actual equation is this:

overfishing + climate change == oceans are screwed FOR US.

We got rid of predators (fish), so their prey (jellyfish) have grown out of control.

The jellyfish are perfectly happy with this.

We might have to start eating differently.
http://sandiego.metblogs.com/2009/05/03/the-truth-about-eating-a-jellyfish/

Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."

Prisoner 650, missing since 2003 with her 3 children

Interesting.

I've never heard of the Falun Gong trying to drive someone to suicide.

I have, however seen plenty of them having peaceful protests (literally doing a variant of tai chi in public) getting the shit beat out of them by Chinese police.

I was interviewed by the WSJ Online tech writer Andrew LaVallee for this article. Mr. Lavellee was interested in my take on the entire MSN issue because I listed myself as an "Ex-Dodgeball Junkie" during this discussion on a local blog.

Dodgeball doesn't work (its Friend of a Friend function hasn't worked in nearly a year and a half) and there are SO many fucking douchebags that are trying to use Dodgeball as if it is Twitter instead of using Twitter.

I'm half glad that I wasn't quoted as the questions the writer asked weren't really pertaining to MSNs but more to the drama that was occurring on Dodgeball locally here in the Twin Cities based on the Metroblogging post I linked above.

Dodgeball was great two years ago when I started using it but after Google bought it out it has remained in nearly the same state while other services have exploded. Google obviously cares only about the database of venues and the visit frequency of its users and not so much about anything else. We'll see if they do anything with it now that MSNs have really taken off in the media.

Do you honestly believe that the Jews of Germany didn't try to counter the hate literature as you suggested?

I'd say it was wildly successful. But the truck doesn't turn on a dime. There's far less anti-semitism in the US and Europe these days. You can't change attitudes by banning speech, but a focused effort over more than 50 years with common sense reasoning (and a lot of hefty propaganda, to be honest) did the trick.

And where is *your* proof? :)

My proof? The US government has a long history of causing substantial harm to its citizens. It has a record of abusing power once obtained. And the same holds for other governments. Further, when you consider the Patriot Act, there's no power there that the US government needs to perform its duties. And a lot of crap like getting book lists from libraries and such (hint: if law enforcement has probable cause they can easily get this information with a warrant). And finally, these laws just don't pass common sense reasoning. You need to impose on the rights of hundreds of millions of people so that your job of finding the bad apples is slightly easier? How about you first do your job and catch these people. If the evildoers are actually using strategies that make it impossible for law enforcement to catch them, then those strategies will come to light and we can fix that problem.

Also, there seems to quite a record of bungling concerning the 9/11 terrorists. Several of them had entered on expired visas and FBI agents had been searching for a few of these people at the time the attacks occured. If the government had been competent and responsive, they would have caught several before the attacks (they did catch one to be honest). Might not have stopped it, but it would have made the hurdle higher. Also, I think the security of the pre-9/11 plane (particularly the unsecured hatch to the cockpit) didn't help.

Do you really think that the obviously absurd expectations and low level of training exhibited by the campus cop(s) involved is an indication of what "police" (as in, "all police") do?

Since we could have heard about this from NY, or FL, or LA, and this particular one just happened to occur on a college campus - Yes, I'd say this does reflect the generally brutish quality of police in general.



Have you suddenly stopped seeing the firing of cops caught doing this sort of thing?

Better question - Have you suddenly started seeing cops fired for shit like this? Departments cover it up as much as possible, the cowards hiding even their names behind their "LEO's Bill of Rights"; When it makes the press, the chiefs talk about investigations and appropriate discipline, then give the offending cops a few weeks of paid vacation.

Rodney King, Humboldt County (Earth First vs Pacific Lumber Co), the present example... And do cops go to prison for grossly abusing their authority? Hell no! Given one cop testifying against two dozen dirty hippies, the courts show just a wee bit of bias there...



how we'll be treating all students that refuse to show ID in an area where you have to show ID.

Trespassing does not negate your basic human rights, nor the responsibility of the police to act humanely and with as little force as the situation requires. Some punk taking a bit longer than they want to pack his books up does not justify tasering.



we were talking about someone having captured video of a person (without ID) who got into a secured part of the campus and assaulted a student.

A college campus doesn't count as a war zone. You don't have a "Green zone" where you only expect to see familiar white faces, and if you want to survive to see tomorrow you must view anyone unfamiliar as carrying a bomb. This didn't happen in Baghdad, it happened on a goddamned American college campus.

Get a sense of scale, here! 9/11 did not change everything, regardless of how those who want an authoritarian government may spin it.



In your imaginary, rhetorical "police state," you wouldn't be having this conversation.

Chinese and Egyptian students keep blogging, regardless of the risk.

But
that
doesn't
happen
here,
right?

As for Flickr, my interest has wained so much that at the moment I'm basically only using it because of Metroblogging Azeroth, but since I'm probably leaving WoW for good at the end of this month, I'm probably just going to delete my Flickr account. I've already "privatised" all but about 150 of my 5,000+ photos.

I agree that it's great people are taking advantage of the new services, hopefully some of those will provide the people of New Orleans with their still more pressing needs, like houses, regular supply of goods + services, etc. In case you missed it, a remarkable story of Katrina and its post-effects appears on this blog (no relation). Even current posts there detail how things are still far from normal -- things each of us take for granted are still considered blessings in the affected areas.

I've got a post on this over at Metroblogging Austin. It's a blemish on a supposedly enlightened tech town.

On Gold and Gollums, an overview into the Gold Farming and Selling Industry

Sure, it's interesting that there are large, organized networks that employ legions of people willing to spend their days harvesting gold, but what really strikes me is the degree to which gold farmers manipulate a server's entire economy.

The red and yellow model resemble the old Speak'n Spell. Here is a picture: http://atlanta.metblogs.com/archives/images/2005/1 1/speak_spell.JPG

http://oc.metblogs.com/archives/fsm.jpg

Zombie Walks in Seattle - Boingboing seems to be a hotbed of articles on upcoming zombie mob activity and pointers to pictures of the events afterwards:
Vancouver Pictures San Francisco.

I went to the supreme court this morning in hopes of being able to see the oral arguments for the case (I live in the DC area). Unfortunately, there was a huge line and I and many others didn't get in. I can report on what happened outside, though.

The pro-RIAA/MPAA/MGM protesters showed up first, at maybe 8:45am. They tried to go up on the steps leading to the court building, but police told them they needed to stay on the sidewalk. This group of folks then hung out for a little while with their signs (one which read "Thou shalt not steal. -God"), then some of them took out their guitars and started playing and singing.

Then at around 9am, the protesters from the Consumer Electronics Association showed up, with black shirts reading "Save Betamax" in white letters. They were met with a some cheers from some folks in the waiting lines as they left their bus and assembled on the sidewalk a little ways away from the rival protesters. They had more creative signs compared to the musician protesters. The interesting thing to note were different demographics of the two protesting groups. The musicians were mostly middle-aged white men. The electronics advocates were generally younger, and had more of a mix of genders and races.

The news media started showing up in full force at around 9:30, and took some interviews with various people, including folks from both protest groups, and random people (including a teenager from a school group). I saw cameras from NBC, ABC, Channel One and Reuters. The media seemed to be focusing a lot of attention on the musician protest group, as at least one of their members was always being interviewed. However, that might have had something to do with them having guitars and making music, which got them attention.

The crowd waiting to get in seemed to be either on the side of Grokster or ambivalent. I took some photos, which I'll put up on Flickr (tagged "Grokster" or something like that) or the dc metblog when I get home from work.

Bloggers: 43 Folders, Kris Dresden, Diane Duane, Paul Ford, Neil Gaiman, Michael Hanscom, Jason Kottke, Anne Murphy, Jessamyn North, Alia Phibes, Quentin Tarantino, and Wil Wheaton.

Linklogs: Anil Dash, Best of Craigslist, Boing Boing, CoolGov, Daze Reader, Fazed, Kottke Remainders, LinkMachineGo, MetaJournal, Michael Hanscom's Linklog, Museum of Hoaxes, NewYorkish, Paul Ford's Linklog, Snopes: New, SubText, and UFies.org.

Chicago: Chicagoist, jamas.org, CHICAGO.Metroblogging, Chicago Snapshot, CTA Tattler, Gapers' Block, and L or El.

Miscellaneous: Ask Slashdot, Citying, Cult of the One-Eyed Cat, Good Plastic Surgery, I Work With Fools, Schmo Blog, TeeVee, This Is Broken, Today In Alternate History, and x-entertainment.

Apple Bloggers: Buzz Andersen, Bill Bumgarner, Todd Dominey, Folklore, Steven Frank, John Gruber, Dave Hyatt, Brent Simmons,