It's always seemed odd to me that people kept comparing Iraq to post-war Japan and Germany, or to Vietnam.
The most obvious analogy is with Yugoslavia, a country that was held together only by the brutal power of a dictator, Tito, and which fell apart into a vicious three-way civil war after his death. Heck, it was only 10 years ago that it was headline news, not the 40 or 60 years ago of the other wars.
How did we forget the lessons from that war? Clinton wanted to keep land forces out of that conflict at all costs, even if it meant watching massacres happen unpunished. The media scaremongered about the "hundreds of casualties" that might occur, and questioned whether we had real interests in the region. Our war in Iraq is like if we had gone in and toppled Tito ourselves, and caused the country to explode into civil war with 100,000 of our troops in the middle from the beginning, from Sarejevo to Dubrovnik.
I guess this is what happens when a President comes in determined to forget the lessons of the previous commander-in-chief. Remember his promise "not to engage in nationbuilding"?
Yes, but it's still pretty bad that the bills have basically the same designs except for the portarit and the face in the corner. I know they have new designs for bills now, but they've made it consistent across the different bills again, which does not help things.
You could look at typical playing card designs, which are designed so that it's very hard to mistake one card from another. In addition to the numbers in the corner, the picture in the middle are made very different so you don't have to look closely at a tiny number to distinguish. They are also colored, which is redundant because of the suites, but helps to quickly identify them. In general, having multiple ways of differentiating a card or a bill helps with identification and makes scams using taped-over numbers harder.
I don't see why the U.S. has to lag behind just because "We've always done it this way."
Why, the Cybernym Office of the Department of Cyberland Security, of course! (Or for our British friends, the Ministry of Funny Cyber-Related Names). We need somebody to come up with these inane names so that we don't have to waste precious shopping time and brain cells coming up with names that make sense!
These and other wonderful phrases are coined by experts in the field of anti-marketing, who then insert them subliminally into the President's speeches. Those flubs you thought president Bush makes? They're actually implanting new words into your brain, which is then covered over by a constructed memory of a speech gaffe, thus ensuring the nation does not know where these new terms come from.
So the next time you hear someone mention their "Zune", their "myspace", "lonelygirl15", "capcha", or "Cybersecurity", you'll know they're imaginary things implanted in people's brains against their will! And knowing... is half the battle!
Jet Li as a disgruntled Chinese engineer who must help his corrupt evil employer pirate Korean cell phones to feed his family, and Jackie Chan as the bumbling Korean businessman who must bring him to justice! Who will win in this contest of wills! Can Li retain his honor after making pink cell phones for teenage girls! Find out in - Death Factory of Cell Phones: The Legend of The Ringtone Dragon Coming soon!
You're forgetting that this isn't an ordinary murder, but an attempt to silence the Kremlin's critics. Like terrorism or a mafia hit, the purpose of this is not just to kill the target, but to silence the other critics through intimidation - "See what happens to those who go against us" is the message they're trying to send.
For those purposes, this method makes perfect sense - it grabs headlines internationally, and the sheer outlandishness of it makes people conclude it *must* have been the Russian spies, but there is no direct evidence link that points back at the Russians. This allows them to intimidate their critics, *and* get off scott-free in diplomacy, without even a stern talking-to from the UK.
It's the reason why the mafia uses ways of kiiling to intimidate - a victim found with his tongue cut out means "he shouldn't have talked", but it that doesn't make it mean the mob boss ordered it.
I wouldn't take on president Putin in public if I were you...
I've actually tried playing Puyo Pop with the DDR pads - it works, though it was confusing at first, and not as fast as a thumbpad. The stepping action might be too much strain in a game like that, where you have to adjust things constantly. Find some games where you don't need quick reflexes, I guess.
Maybe get a controller that has full joysticks instead of analog pads, and play stuff like Katamari?
Right now, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, and S. Korea use similar characters descended from the ancient Chinese script which are different enough to make mutual comprehention very difficult. In addition, Korean and Japanese mixes the Chinese-derived characters with native characters not found in Chinese.
The ancient Chinese character set was used throught China by people who had different spoken languages, like Mandarin and Cantonese. The symbolic nature of the characters meant that people who had different spoken languages could have the same written language, which would be pronounced differently but have the same meaning across China. This character set was then exported to Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other neighboring countries, who adapted it to their own languages.
In time, the Koreans and Japanese added different native characters, which were syllabic and easier for commoners to learn. The originally Chinese characters also changed a bit over time. Vietnam changed to a western-style script after it became a French colony.
After WW2, China's communists won the mainland and the nationalists took Taiwan. On the mainland, the Chinese Communist Party instituted a massive change to the character set designed to simplify it and make it easier to teach to peasants. Taiwan, and the foreign Chinese populations like Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. continued to use the traditional characters.
So at this point, there are at least 4 major Chinese-style character sets. Each has enough similarities with the other that many basic characters are the same. There are also many common complex characters between any two of them, however they usually have different common characters with the other sets, so it's probobly not possible to have one "East Asian" character set. That and the political difficulties in getting the countries to agree on one set would make it impossible for now.
It's not what's in the water, it's what's on the ground - snow. Tons of it. Enough to prevent football, hanging out at the mall, or cruising for chicks. And coop you at home with your parents. You gotta have something to do with that time...
Plus, having a nuclear reactor in your bedroom gives more credibility to the 'Radioactive' and 'Do not enter' signs you put on the door to keep your mom out.
You're right, this is the sort of mindset I'd expect from someone with nothing better to do with his time or his life.
Exactly, but we shouldn't let that cloud our judgement. I don't agree fully with the guy in question (I would have shown ID), but I still think the cops went too far in subduing this guy who was clearly not a threat (I mean, a philosophy major - how much more wussier can you get?)
What I want to know is, if standing around and arguing merits a tasering, what do they consider grounds for deadly force? If I spit on one of them, are they going to shoot me? How about a punch? A thrown book?
Sorry, but I think the term "Philosophy student" in the summary says it all.
Keep in mind, that "I like to find the most difficult solutions to the simplest of problems" and "he's the kind of guy that loves to make trouble" are not the same thing as being a violent person. In fact, this is exactly the kind of mindset you'd expect from a philosophy major with an interest in the philosophy of non-violent resistance and individual rights.
A real criminal doesn't refuse to show ID and stand his ground with the cops, they would get the hell out of there before it escalates. Making a scene like that is exactly the kind of thing a libertarian with an attitude or a leftie into protest politics does. Remember that guy who went to the Supreme Court over not showing cops his drivers licence? I bet this guy also had his ID in his pocket, he just wanted to make a point about requiring it.
That "he urged others to join his resistance and a crowd began to gather" (from the ABC story) sounds like he was trying to make a political point. That he knew to "fall limp to the floor" also seems to indicate he was at least aware of non-violent protest tactics. His middle eastern ethnicity and Bahai faith probably make him extra-sensitive to issues of profiling and discrimination, too.
That he was being a self-righteous asshole is just another indication that he's not a criminal and is instead an intellectual who was expecting an argument or debate - instead, he got some muscle-bound cop who thought insolence and disobedience had to be met by force.
So congratulations, Campus Cops - you found the least dangerous, most-likely-to-sue-over-civil-rights student in the library and tasered him in front of a crowd with cameras. Great job.
This man shall go down in history as the first one to come up with a pun on Uranus that didn't involve "anus". He deserves a Knighthood or a Presidential Medal of Freedom for that.
I admit it's not a huge improvement, but any progress on the bad-Uranus-puns front should be rewarded.
As a non-native speaker of English, I must ask you people to sort out your collective nouns before you go opposing some cute plural forms.
I mean, what is a group of boxes/boxen? A network of boxen? A horde of boxes? A gaggle of PCs? A school of Apples?
I suppose we can say "A FreeGeek of hardware", though. I've been there once, it seemed like the kind of really cool place any geek would like. Kind of a Salvation Army of computer hardware and Linux, really.
No, it's just a case of a phrase becoming an idiom, where the literal meaning of the words has little to do with the actual meaning of the whole phrase.
I think you will find that there are lots of idioms in the English language that have a well understood meaning, but which most people could not tell you how the words actually lead to the meaning.
"The proof is in the pudding" "He had a devil-may-care attitude" "She dressed to kill for the party"
Besides, "I could care less" is actually correct, people usually can:) It's "I couldn't care less" that is incorrect, because the fact that they are talking about it means they care to some extent:)
"Slashdot needs 'jailbait' mod, thought Lolita" "Do I look fat? Answer: 42" "Poor little pet goat, thought Bush" "Constitution Amended, Schwarzenegger becomes American Emperor" "Annonymous Coward saves world with troll" "'Who's tickled now, bitch?!' Yelled Elmo" "Headline: Bored Santa impregnates bad girls" "Computer untrustworthy: 'Designed for Windows XP'" "SPAM problem solved by killer robots"
"#!/usr/bin/perl s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*",_) [20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@b=map{ordqB8,unqb8,qT,_ ^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb25,_;H=73;O=$b[ 4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))>8^(E&(F=(S=O>> 14&7^O)^S*8^S>=8)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+ qT,@a}';s/[D-HO-U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval deCSS in six words" (Code by Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz)
I bet you could make an entire AI in Perl fit six words:)
7. "I'm just a patsy-OH NO I'VE BEEN SHOT!" (Oswald defence) 8. "You want the Truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!" (A Few Good Men defence) 9. "I'm telling you, it wasn't me! It was a one-armed man! You've got to believe me!" (The Fugitive defence) 10. "These are not the evidence you are lookiing for" (Obi-wan defense) 11. "That depends on what the definition of 'kill' is." (The Clinton defence) 12. "Putting this 'evidence' out for anyone to read is helping our terrorist enemies." (The Bush defence)
Well, as another poster has noted, unless you have a time machine you won't be able to make another 300-year old painting. Unless you have the time machine and a copy(clone?) of the artist, you won't be able to make a new painting by that artist.
The value of art that is from a noted artist is only partly in the image on the canvas; if you wanted that, you could buy a poster for $20. And yet, as you noted, the originals still sell for thousands. The value is in having an object that was shaped by the artists themselves, and is a direct part of their history.
It's like the original Constitution or Declaration of Independence that they have at the capitol; it's not like we don't have more copies of them, or that our laws are no longer valid if we lose the actual papers signed by the founders. But the originals are an important part of our history, and something invaluable would be lost if we lose them.
Plus, there can be important data in actually having the thing, as opposed to simply the image on the surface. See this example of a Da Vinci sketch found under another painting of his. Art restorations and forensic analysis can bring out details or history that is hidden, in the materials or image, and that is just not possible with a reproduction. No archaeologist would say that we should be okay with the destruction of cave paintings as long as we have the image copied - to them the value is in the creation, not the aesthetics.
A flanking manouver around the Korean peninsula would be very difficult for anyone but the U.S. to do. It takes a huge amount of resources to land enough troops to be useful in an amphibious assault. In fact, given the amount of western naval power, it's unlikely N.K. will even try to get more than a few commando teams ashore. Airborne units are also not likely to succeed given the amount of air defenses in S.K. The best bet for N.K. to bypass defenses would be a tunnel like the ones that have been found in the past, but I would imagine any such tunnel would be bombed as soon as troops started coming out of an entrance at the surface.
The DMZ and defensive line crosses the entire peninsula and is guarded by hundreds of thousands of troops. It's also got a huge amount of artillery to counter the N.K. artillary, so you would have to land a very large number of troops in a wide area in order to be useful.
You have to remember that N.K. may have nukes, but their conventional forces are probobly stuck in the 1950s, if not 1917.
Slashdot Mirror
It's always seemed odd to me that people kept comparing Iraq to post-war Japan and Germany, or to Vietnam.
The most obvious analogy is with Yugoslavia, a country that was held together only by the brutal power of a dictator, Tito, and which fell apart into a vicious three-way civil war after his death. Heck, it was only 10 years ago that it was headline news, not the 40 or 60 years ago of the other wars.
How did we forget the lessons from that war? Clinton wanted to keep land forces out of that conflict at all costs, even if it meant watching massacres happen unpunished. The media scaremongered about the "hundreds of casualties" that might occur, and questioned whether we had real interests in the region. Our war in Iraq is like if we had gone in and toppled Tito ourselves, and caused the country to explode into civil war with 100,000 of our troops in the middle from the beginning, from Sarejevo to Dubrovnik.
I guess this is what happens when a President comes in determined to forget the lessons of the previous commander-in-chief. Remember his promise "not to engage in nationbuilding"?
You think those are bad, check out the car commercials they have in Japan. What. The. Fuck. It's a wonder they manage to sell any cars at all.
o nse - The Governator sells DirecTV to Japan
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jJ2yGIYMWwo - "are you bored? human touch" - creepiest car commercial ever. It's like they're trying to scare people away from the car or something. I kept thinking, "I hope that seat doesn't get a boner"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U7FMgfnL5B8 - Because nothing says "good car" like bending spoons.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9OSbAAeGzpw - Some J-pop fan's schizo dream
And some non-car ones...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ahXH-sUzJkM - Got Milk? Got boobs?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wea8i5rnAyo&watch_resp
Yes, but it's still pretty bad that the bills have basically the same designs except for the portarit and the face in the corner. I know they have new designs for bills now, but they've made it consistent across the different bills again, which does not help things.
You could look at typical playing card designs, which are designed so that it's very hard to mistake one card from another. In addition to the numbers in the corner, the picture in the middle are made very different so you don't have to look closely at a tiny number to distinguish. They are also colored, which is redundant because of the suites, but helps to quickly identify them. In general, having multiple ways of differentiating a card or a bill helps with identification and makes scams using taped-over numbers harder.
I don't see why the U.S. has to lag behind just because "We've always done it this way."
If you're going to target macho, non-homosexual building contractors, how about names like:
AssPounder
WoodFucker
BoyNailer
Goatse-izer
Penetrator
Nailin'Man
DeepThroater
DickSticker
But if someone mails me anthrax, will they convert it to a Outlook macro for me?
If my gf sends me panties, will someone sniff it for me?
When the brother of the ex-president of Nigeria sends me his check, will they PayPal it to me?
See, unless it does all the things I use my snail mail for, it's useless to me.
Why, the Cybernym Office of the Department of Cyberland Security, of course! (Or for our British friends, the Ministry of Funny Cyber-Related Names). We need somebody to come up with these inane names so that we don't have to waste precious shopping time and brain cells coming up with names that make sense!
Post-thanksgiving shopping spike? Cyber monday. Post-valentine indigestion? Cyber diahrrea. Post-New year's hangover? Cyber burrito (don't ask).
These and other wonderful phrases are coined by experts in the field of anti-marketing, who then insert them subliminally into the President's speeches. Those flubs you thought president Bush makes? They're actually implanting new words into your brain, which is then covered over by a constructed memory of a speech gaffe, thus ensuring the nation does not know where these new terms come from.
So the next time you hear someone mention their "Zune", their "myspace", "lonelygirl15", "capcha", or "Cybersecurity", you'll know they're imaginary things implanted in people's brains against their will! And knowing... is half the battle!
Ooh! I smell blockbuster!
Jet Li as a disgruntled Chinese engineer who must help his corrupt evil employer pirate Korean cell phones to feed his family, and Jackie Chan as the bumbling Korean businessman who must bring him to justice! Who will win in this contest of wills! Can Li retain his honor after making pink cell phones for teenage girls! Find out in - Death Factory of Cell Phones: The Legend of The Ringtone Dragon Coming soon!
You're forgetting that this isn't an ordinary murder, but an attempt to silence the Kremlin's critics. Like terrorism or a mafia hit, the purpose of this is not just to kill the target, but to silence the other critics through intimidation - "See what happens to those who go against us" is the message they're trying to send.
For those purposes, this method makes perfect sense - it grabs headlines internationally, and the sheer outlandishness of it makes people conclude it *must* have been the Russian spies, but there is no direct evidence link that points back at the Russians. This allows them to intimidate their critics, *and* get off scott-free in diplomacy, without even a stern talking-to from the UK.
It's the reason why the mafia uses ways of kiiling to intimidate - a victim found with his tongue cut out means "he shouldn't have talked", but it that doesn't make it mean the mob boss ordered it.
I wouldn't take on president Putin in public if I were you...
Well, they are making a political game for the Wii, but you'll have to wait for the Gun Controller to come out :P
I've actually tried playing Puyo Pop with the DDR pads - it works, though it was confusing at first, and not as fast as a thumbpad. The stepping action might be too much strain in a game like that, where you have to adjust things constantly. Find some games where you don't need quick reflexes, I guess.
Maybe get a controller that has full joysticks instead of analog pads, and play stuff like Katamari?
Right now, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, and S. Korea use similar characters descended from the ancient Chinese script which are different enough to make mutual comprehention very difficult. In addition, Korean and Japanese mixes the Chinese-derived characters with native characters not found in Chinese.
The ancient Chinese character set was used throught China by people who had different spoken languages, like Mandarin and Cantonese. The symbolic nature of the characters meant that people who had different spoken languages could have the same written language, which would be pronounced differently but have the same meaning across China. This character set was then exported to Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other neighboring countries, who adapted it to their own languages.
In time, the Koreans and Japanese added different native characters, which were syllabic and easier for commoners to learn. The originally Chinese characters also changed a bit over time. Vietnam changed to a western-style script after it became a French colony.
After WW2, China's communists won the mainland and the nationalists took Taiwan. On the mainland, the Chinese Communist Party instituted a massive change to the character set designed to simplify it and make it easier to teach to peasants. Taiwan, and the foreign Chinese populations like Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. continued to use the traditional characters.
So at this point, there are at least 4 major Chinese-style character sets. Each has enough similarities with the other that many basic characters are the same. There are also many common complex characters between any two of them, however they usually have different common characters with the other sets, so it's probobly not possible to have one "East Asian" character set. That and the political difficulties in getting the countries to agree on one set would make it impossible for now.
It's not what's in the water, it's what's on the ground - snow. Tons of it. Enough to prevent football, hanging out at the mall, or cruising for chicks. And coop you at home with your parents. You gotta have something to do with that time...
Plus, having a nuclear reactor in your bedroom gives more credibility to the 'Radioactive' and 'Do not enter' signs you put on the door to keep your mom out.
You're right, this is the sort of mindset I'd expect from someone with nothing better to do with his time or his life.
Exactly, but we shouldn't let that cloud our judgement. I don't agree fully with the guy in question (I would have shown ID), but I still think the cops went too far in subduing this guy who was clearly not a threat (I mean, a philosophy major - how much more wussier can you get?)
What I want to know is, if standing around and arguing merits a tasering, what do they consider grounds for deadly force? If I spit on one of them, are they going to shoot me? How about a punch? A thrown book?
Sorry, but I think the term "Philosophy student" in the summary says it all.
Keep in mind, that "I like to find the most difficult solutions to the simplest of problems" and "he's the kind of guy that loves to make trouble" are not the same thing as being a violent person. In fact, this is exactly the kind of mindset you'd expect from a philosophy major with an interest in the philosophy of non-violent resistance and individual rights.
A real criminal doesn't refuse to show ID and stand his ground with the cops, they would get the hell out of there before it escalates. Making a scene like that is exactly the kind of thing a libertarian with an attitude or a leftie into protest politics does. Remember that guy who went to the Supreme Court over not showing cops his drivers licence? I bet this guy also had his ID in his pocket, he just wanted to make a point about requiring it.
That "he urged others to join his resistance and a crowd began to gather" (from the ABC story) sounds like he was trying to make a political point. That he knew to "fall limp to the floor" also seems to indicate he was at least aware of non-violent protest tactics. His middle eastern ethnicity and Bahai faith probably make him extra-sensitive to issues of profiling and discrimination, too.
That he was being a self-righteous asshole is just another indication that he's not a criminal and is instead an intellectual who was expecting an argument or debate - instead, he got some muscle-bound cop who thought insolence and disobedience had to be met by force.
So congratulations, Campus Cops - you found the least dangerous, most-likely-to-sue-over-civil-rights student in the library and tasered him in front of a crowd with cameras. Great job.
I'm in Portland, and when I'm not at work I could easily be mistaken for a criminal (I look like a skater).
:-)
I think everything after your third word was redundant... "I'm in Portland" pretty much implies the rest
But yeah, it's pretty low stealing from FreeGeek.
This man shall go down in history as the first one to come up with a pun on Uranus that didn't involve "anus". He deserves a Knighthood or a Presidential Medal of Freedom for that.
I admit it's not a huge improvement, but any progress on the bad-Uranus-puns front should be rewarded.
As a non-native speaker of English, I must ask you people to sort out your collective nouns before you go opposing some cute plural forms.
I mean, what is a group of boxes/boxen? A network of boxen? A horde of boxes? A gaggle of PCs? A school of Apples?
I suppose we can say "A FreeGeek of hardware", though. I've been there once, it seemed like the kind of really cool place any geek would like. Kind of a Salvation Army of computer hardware and Linux, really.
No, it's just a case of a phrase becoming an idiom, where the literal meaning of the words has little to do with the actual meaning of the whole phrase.
:) It's "I couldn't care less" that is incorrect, because the fact that they are talking about it means they care to some extent :)
I think you will find that there are lots of idioms in the English language that have a well understood meaning, but which most people could not tell you how the words actually lead to the meaning.
"The proof is in the pudding"
"He had a devil-may-care attitude"
"She dressed to kill for the party"
Besides, "I could care less" is actually correct, people usually can
"Slashdot needs 'jailbait' mod, thought Lolita"
) [20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@b=map{ordqB8,unqb8,qT,_ ^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb25,_;H=73;O=$b[ 4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))>8^(E&(F=(S=O>> 14&7^O)^S*8^S>=8)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+ qT,@a}';s/[D-HO-U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval
:)
"Do I look fat? Answer: 42"
"Poor little pet goat, thought Bush"
"Constitution Amended, Schwarzenegger becomes American Emperor"
"Annonymous Coward saves world with troll"
"'Who's tickled now, bitch?!' Yelled Elmo"
"Headline: Bored Santa impregnates bad girls"
"Computer untrustworthy: 'Designed for Windows XP'"
"SPAM problem solved by killer robots"
"#!/usr/bin/perl
s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*",_
deCSS in six words" (Code by Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz)
I bet you could make an entire AI in Perl fit six words
7. "I'm just a patsy-OH NO I'VE BEEN SHOT!" (Oswald defence)
8. "You want the Truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!" (A Few Good Men defence)
9. "I'm telling you, it wasn't me! It was a one-armed man! You've got to believe me!" (The Fugitive defence)
10. "These are not the evidence you are lookiing for" (Obi-wan defense)
11. "That depends on what the definition of 'kill' is." (The Clinton defence)
12. "Putting this 'evidence' out for anyone to read is helping our terrorist enemies." (The Bush defence)
Well, as another poster has noted, unless you have a time machine you won't be able to make another 300-year old painting. Unless you have the time machine and a copy(clone?) of the artist, you won't be able to make a new painting by that artist.
The value of art that is from a noted artist is only partly in the image on the canvas; if you wanted that, you could buy a poster for $20. And yet, as you noted, the originals still sell for thousands. The value is in having an object that was shaped by the artists themselves, and is a direct part of their history.
It's like the original Constitution or Declaration of Independence that they have at the capitol; it's not like we don't have more copies of them, or that our laws are no longer valid if we lose the actual papers signed by the founders. But the originals are an important part of our history, and something invaluable would be lost if we lose them.
Plus, there can be important data in actually having the thing, as opposed to simply the image on the surface. See this example of a Da Vinci sketch found under another painting of his. Art restorations and forensic analysis can bring out details or history that is hidden, in the materials or image, and that is just not possible with a reproduction. No archaeologist would say that we should be okay with the destruction of cave paintings as long as we have the image copied - to them the value is in the creation, not the aesthetics.
I'm pretty sure I could make a "Log all credit card numbers and email them to me" extension for Firefox
I find your ideas intruiging and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
A flanking manouver around the Korean peninsula would be very difficult for anyone but the U.S. to do. It takes a huge amount of resources to land enough troops to be useful in an amphibious assault. In fact, given the amount of western naval power, it's unlikely N.K. will even try to get more than a few commando teams ashore. Airborne units are also not likely to succeed given the amount of air defenses in S.K. The best bet for N.K. to bypass defenses would be a tunnel like the ones that have been found in the past, but I would imagine any such tunnel would be bombed as soon as troops started coming out of an entrance at the surface.
The DMZ and defensive line crosses the entire peninsula and is guarded by hundreds of thousands of troops. It's also got a huge amount of artillery to counter the N.K. artillary, so you would have to land a very large number of troops in a wide area in order to be useful.
You have to remember that N.K. may have nukes, but their conventional forces are probobly stuck in the 1950s, if not 1917.
McDonalds had a "Hot coffee" mod, unfortunately they were sued :(
My rating: 8/9/3 (yes, it's obscure...)