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October 28, 2005

Online insanity?

I like online games. I even code for one. But some things, even I can't understand.

A virtual space resort being built in the online role-playing game, Project Entropia, has been snapped up for $100,000. Jon Jacobs, aka Neverdie, won the auction for the as yet unnamed resort in the game, which lets thousands of players interact with each other. Entropia also allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash.

The exchange rate is $1USD=10 Project Entropia Dollars. And, once deposited, can't be withdrawn. I have to think Mr Jacobs has been playing for a long, long time and built up a large amount of game money with a smaller initial investment. Either that or he's completely insane.

Congratulations on your binary haven, Mr Jacobs.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:48 PM

October 25, 2005

Rest in peace

Fifty years ago, a lady refused to give her bus seat up for a man. This simple act sent her to jail and sparked a bus boycott that is considered the start of the modern civil rights movement.

Rest in peace, Mrs Parks.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:40 AM

October 20, 2005

People for the EuThenasia of Animals?

PETA workers face 25 felony counts in North Carolina. ... Additionally, the two [PETA] employees were charged with three felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses. The charges allege that they euthanized three cats from an Ahoskie veterinarian after promising to find the animals new homes... PETA employees ... were served with warrants on 22 felony charges of animal cruelty and the three felony charges of obtaining property by false pretense in court on Friday. Police began investigating this summer after carcasses of cats and dogs in plastic bags were found in a supermarket garbage bin ... every Wednesday for four consecutive weeks. At least 80 animals were found.

Ethical indeed. I'm willing to bet the dead animals were photographed by PeTA to highlight the evil things that people do to animals, because the ends justifies the means, just as it did in last year's "Your mommy kills animals" 'comic' (depecing Suzie Homemaker repeatedly stabbing a cowering bunny with a kitchen knife).

But I'm a cynic at heart.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 11:00 AM

Many, many thanks

go out to Webkittyn, who let me in on the secret of getting rid of comment spam. From around 35 per day, for the last week it has dropped to zero.

Aparently, the spammers focus on the word "Posted" to locate the comment links. Changing this renders them impotent.

Thanks you!

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:58 AM

October 13, 2005

Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Schroeder.

Giving a parting kick to the US, a 'tearful looking' departing Chanceller Schroeder addressed a 'rapt' audience of union members,

He quickly composed himself, hitting his stride in a passionate defense of a strong German state and lashing out at "Anglo-Saxon" economic policies favoured in Britain and the United States, which he said had "no chance" in Europe.

Indeed, there was Lisbon Strategy (2000), a ten year plan to make the EU the world's powerhouse economy. Part of the future strong Germany Gerhard was going to create involved increased investment in education, R&D, producing world leadership in medical drugs and biotech. A plan, indeed.

All that was lacking was execution. An EU Commission's survey shows that 400,000 European science and technology graduates have immigrated to the US, whilst companies GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis both have moved their research to the US.

But arguments over economic models aren't all that much fun. Skipping ahead to the bit where he sticks his little knife into the US:

"I do not want to name any catastrophes where you can see what happens if organised state action is absent. I could name countries, but the position I still hold forbids it, but everyone knows I mean America," he said to loud applause.

The position forbids it, but he'll do it anyway. Because that's just the kind of guy he is.

We all know the response to Katrina wasn't as quick as it should have been, and there's been finger pointing a plenty, and doubtless more to come and heads will (and should) roll.

I wonder, though, if that reminded his staunch ally Jacques of the heatwave two years back that killed 13,000 of his denizens and took the government a full week to declare an emergency.

The more caring european model at work. Or not.

Auf Wiedersehen Herr Schroeder. Danke 'n scheiss, scheißkerl.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:09 PM

October 12, 2005

23 post, 5th sentence.

I have been tagged by Utopia.

The rules:
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.

It seems everyone I know has been tagged already. This perhaps indicates I don't get out enough. So I shall simply put out an open call: If you'd like to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.

From the 23rd post:

According to people who are there, England's response is typically stoic, greeting these events with resolve.

The post was on the London train and bus bombings. I recall not being terribly surprised at that reaction, having a grandmother who lived and worked in London in 1944 during the 'Little Blitz' (the age of V1 and V2 rockets). No hidden meanings or agendas. Simply the english getting on with things that needed to be done.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 03:07 PM

October 11, 2005

That's smurferific!

Smurficide, as reported in the UK by the Telegraph.

Gargamel finally found out where the village was and launched a good old fashioned airstrike, replete with BLU-82 'mushroom cutters'.

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom-shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky. Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

Unsurprisingly, it makes small children who see it cry. It was toned down from the original concept, in which smurfs are variously dismembered and decapitated by the blasts (which would be one way of settling the question of whether they're blue all the way through). Fifteen year olds will just think its cool.

The object, is, of course to make people think. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the use of warplanes and aerial bombing in the popular imagination is pretty closely tied to the US.

I'm thinking Papa Smurf knew. Or he needed a bigger defense budget. And that is was the US, they'd go after Barney the Dinosaur because that's where the oil comes from. That the Belgians may cry over cartoons of dead blue things, but weren't too cut up about Rwanda circa 1994, or massacres in any other ex-colony.

And also "Charlie don't smurf."

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:41 AM

October 07, 2005

Control of the Internet.

BRAIN: Come, Pinky, we must prepare for tomorrow night.
PINKY: Why, Brain? What are we going to do tomorrow night?
BRAIN: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

The UN and the EU are both fighting to have a larger slice of the pie that is known as 'control of the internet'. They currently have none. The US, which invested, developed and created the internet through research and expenditure own the 'root servers', controlling it all. The Guardian reports:

The EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium ... [The US refused] ... But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world's governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.

Incidentally, the UN does have an International Telecomunications Union (ITU), and had a chance to develop their own network standards and implementations. I should like a show of hands of people who use X.25 (not the hypersonic rocket plane) over TCP/IP. Thought so.

Which countries were insisting?

Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Russia and several African states.

I cant wait for Fidel, Mugabe, Xiang and Hosni (where's Jaques? He's usually good for a bit of this kind of tomfoolery) to decide what I can read on the internet. China's Ambassador, Sha Zukang, said "This situation is very undemocratic, unfair and unreasonable" - which sounds a salient point, unless you're aware that this week China imposed new rules that allow only "healthy and civilized" news to be read by the mainland's 100 million Web users.

But, above and beyond that, countries exercise complete authority over their own ccTLD servers. Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran control .br, .cn, .cu, and .ir respectively. The root servers see to that. So what control issues do they have?

There is, however, good news. It will be officially raised at... a UN sumit. When was the last time that was actually effectual?

And the US does have a large ace up the sleeve, called "VETO".

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:04 PM

And the IgNominee is...

Once more, it is the time of year when prizes are awarded to those who advance science, culture and art. The Ig®Nobel prize was created by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) and acknowledges actual scientific "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."

Some of this years winners include:

MEDICINE: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, USA. For inventing Neuticles - artificial replacement dog testicles, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.

PEACE: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, UK. For electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie "Star Wars."

FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu , Finland; and Jozsef Gal of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary. For using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation."

And those are simply some of the many. The complete list of recipients and reasons are available here.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:39 AM

October 06, 2005

Trailers can be misleading.

Brett Meisner had a lot of spare time and came up with a very, very misleading trailer. For the Shining.

Makes it look like a movie to see on a first date.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:05 PM