Cartoons Worse than Torture?

This is the Real Outrage by Tariq Ali (Common Dreams) slices through the nonsense over the non-issue of the recent cartoons of Muhammed published in newspapers[1] recently. He acknowledges that the right to free speech is paramount, but neither can a speaker assume that everyone will react calmly and reasonably, regardless of the message.

“[T]he cartoon depicting Muhammad as a terrorist is a crude racist stereotype. The implication is that every Muslim is a potential terrorist. This is the sort... [More]”

The article, Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain (Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel) documents the rising fortunes of bottled water. Again and again, studies have pointed out that the water in these bottles is either no different from or actually inferior to the water coming from your faucet (“roughly 40 percent of bottled water begins as tap water”). Even several years ago, a large city like New York had healthier tap water in most places than the average bottle of water. In many countries, drinking tap water in... [More]

The Olympics can be a harsh mistress:

Swiss Men’s Hockey Team Shocks Canada

Coming only two days after their stunning upset of the world champion Czech Republic, 3-2, the Swiss team shut out the defending Olympic champions in a hard-fought battle.

Japan upsets Canada in women’s curling

Curling is more popular in Canada than hockey, if you can believe that. The women’s team is favored to win the Olympics again this year; they lost to Japan today.

‘Nuff said.

Simply put? John Dvorak is a troll. He is a click-through slut who will write anything to get people to visit his site. Since he doesn’t seem to get sued for libel and he garners ratings, PCMag hasn’t fired him yet for constantly making predictions that fail to come true. His latest opus is called Will Apple Adopt Windows? (do not click, see below), in which he predicts that Apple will abandon their OS X in favor of licensing Windows for their hardware. Here’s a good example of his... [More]

In a recent discussion about Bill Gates’ Letter to the HCC (Slashdot)[1], an unusually astute comment (Slashdot) was logged by 808140[2]. It put into clear terms the difference between copying software, media or other digital bits and the actual legal definition of stealing. Stealing means to deprive someone (the “owner”) of something to which they have purchased title. Making a digital copy of that “something” does not in any way deprive the owner of their property, so it can hardly be called stealing, can it?

“What [the... [More]”

Last night saw the Olympics pairs figure skating final unfold in Torino. Unusually, things were going quite well and there had been only one judging anomoly for most of the evening. That one occurred when a Russian couple mysteriously got enough points to maintain their 8th place position over a 9th place Polish couple that outshone them completely. Figure skating is complicated to judge and the most unnoticable things (like which edge you’re using and so on) are quite hard and get marked... [More]

Neverwinter Nights 2 is a role-playing video game coming to the PC sometime in 2006. It hasn’t been that long since a “check out these awesome screenshots” article[1], but I like screenshots. The last batch[2] were of a hyper-realistic racing game set in real cities around the world—a very angular, metal and concrete world. Neverwinter Nights 2 takes place in a much more organic, open world with trees, grass and other bits of nature as the main backdrop to the adventure.

Using Those Pipelines

Cottage in the ForestBridge Through the Forest

... [More]

As George Bush mentioned at the beginning of his State of the Union speech, Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, died last week. She was almost 80 years old and had been in poor health after suffering a stroke and heart attack last summer. Throughout her life, she was a champion of civil rights for minorities—especially the poor—and was an outspoken pacifist. She was laid to rest with a six hour funeral ceremony during which “almost three dozen people spoke”, according to the... [More]

It’s been five years now since the President stopped caring whether we knew he was lying to us. It’s been five years since the office dropped the facade of caring what the American people think of what it does. It was harsh when it first happened, but by now it’s really hard to work up a good batch of indignation about it. So, yeah, you kind of just get used to it. It’s an attitude that is eminently manipulable by supporters of this president, this desire to ignore news of his repeated... [More]

“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. ‘I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding both puppets!’ ‘Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here’s Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons.‘”

Piss Christ by Andres SerranoAt least one embassy has been brought to the ground because of some childish cartoons published in a newspaper in Denmark. Or, shall we say, ostensibly because of these cartoons. The causal nature of the publishing of the cartoons and the burning of a Danish embassy is as plain as the nose on your face, most would say. Is that really so? A quick recap is probably in order for those that have only heard bits and pieces of fact mixed in with hyperbole from all sides, describing typical behavior... [More]

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Ars Technica) reviews the latest racing game from Bizarre Studios for the Xbox 360. The previous incarnations were known for their graphics. This one will be known for its photorealistic graphics. I’ve seen a couple of movies of the game in action and it is nothing short of breathtaking. Even when the action stops for a quarter of a beat as a Ferrari slews around in a 360º turn, the city backdrops are so perfect, you can’t tell you’re not watching a movie. The cars are perfectly... [More]

’Marshall Plan’ for Iraq Fades (LA Times) hove its bedraggled carcass into view, reared its ugly head and expired with a wheeze that sounded like: “the America we learned about is dead and probably never existed”.

The story interviews several American officials whose crassness is beyond caricature—previously found only in the diseased imaginings of a died-in-the-wool marxist. And yet, quotes from these people are sprinkled throughout a story that shows no sense of outrage whatsoever. As far as the LA... [More]

The Whisky PC is a PC inside a whisky bottle. It’s about the size of a Mac Mini and looks pretty cool.

It’s apparently not so easy to do, as the guy (I’m assuming) who made the case had to get it professionally done:

“I tried to cut and drill couple of similar bottles at home but I realized that my tools are not good enough for it, then finaly a professional glass grinder man prepared the whisky bottle for me. He made two holes: one at the back of the bottle for CPU cooling and one at left... [More]”

“Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll give it a shot. Say I’m working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ‘cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem... [More]”

Shiira is a KHTML-based web browser. If you visit this web site, you don’t waste a lot of time looking around for a Windows version, as it’s relatively clear that this is a Mac OS X product. Why is that? What is it about Mac products that demands a different level of graphical design quality and attention to detail? It can’t just be because everything’s shiny, can it?

No, it’s also the good use of the oversized header graphic that’s becoming quite vogue, both flaunting and reinforcing the... [More]

That’s the question implied by the smirk on George Bush’s face every time he speaks to the American people—not that he’s particularly interested in the answer. Bush dragged himself from the depths of his bubble to a dais (or rostrum, as his speechwriter put it) he’s visited six times before to deliver the 2006 State of the Union (Washington Post) address. The speech had all the earmarks of a committee effort delivered by someone who only understood about half of it. There were a good dozen different large... [More]

“I have never won a debate with an ignorant person.”

The third edition of Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, is chock full of dozens of different activities. There are three large, main cities, a whole countryside with several smaller towns and a number of rivers and bays to jet around on. There are naturally the story missions, but also jobs to be had around the city as well as more collection missions than ever. The number of things to do seems to have tripled since Vice City. The game is far from linear, but neither is everything available all at... [More]

Much of the chatter from Washington these days is about corruption, misplaced values and partisan politics. This has probably ever been so, but it’s the last one, partisan politics, that truly colors everything one hears about the centers of power in the United States. Almost without exception, issues are discussed as if there are only two possible sides and those sides are adequately represented by the Democrats and the Republicans, whose opinions on all issues are diametrically opposed. It... [More]

“Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an email.”

Most likely only those with the best endurance survived all 18 hours of the senate confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito. The entire transcript is also available online and runs to hundreds of pages. Reading 50 pages lends a strong feeling of deja vu whereas reading over 100 inspires more a feeling of disenchantment and nausea. Read The Shameless and Spineless by Will Durst (Alternet) for a comic synopsis of the entire transcript (see The hearing so far… (Plastic) for another). Democrats actually did ask pointed questions,... [More]

“What [people] are mostly interested in, lad[ies] and gentlemen, is going along to get along. Which only shows up for what it is—monstrous—if you pull back and take the long view.”

1. Monstrous Regiment (2005) − Terry Pratchett
2. Die Vergessliche Nation (2004) − Gore Vidal (de)
3. Fight Club (1996) − Chuck Palahniuk
4. Bush in Babylon (2003) − Tariq Ali
5. The Poisonwood Bible (1998) − Barbara Kingsolver
6. Across the Sea of Suns (1984) − Gregory Benford
7. America (The Book) (2004) − The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
8. A Small Death in Lisbon (1999) − Robert Lisbon
9. Deception Point (2001) − Dan Brown
10. Darwin’s Children (2003) − Greg Bear
11. Amerikas Kreuzzüge (2005) − Claus Kleber (de)
12. Gravity’s... [More]

“Terrorists can attack our freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.”

Why Ajax Sucks (Most of the Time) by Jakob Nielson is a critique of Ajax that borrows almost all of its text from a critique of HTML frames made several years ago. The author claims the article is a spoof, but, given that the complaints made about frames were valid at the time — and still are — and that the complaints are just as valid for the current batch of web applications, it’s hard to see what’s so funny about this “spoof”.

There are those who argue that frames in fact have not died out, since they... [More]

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Though still not officially available, earthli.com has migrated to the latest and greatest version of the earthli WebCore. Look for a downloadable release within the next week or so. In the meantime, you can cruise around earthli and see some of the improvements for yourself. As with most WebCore releases, the differences are mainly non-cosmetic and of benefit to developers working with the library. However, there are noticeable improvements to the toolbars, menus and other UI elements.