"Guests have a tendency to get shot at — a lot."

Boing Boing: This Spartan Life machinima show on Network Neutrality

If I should ever fly to the US ...

... I will order a halal meal.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Q. What could this boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much

(via Schneier)

Currently reading:

Photoshop API Guide

Damn, reading the document, how they describe hosts and plug-ins, reminds me of the time when I have rewritten parts of the PowerCore SDK Documentation. How they try to address people who have never seen a plug-in. How it seems to come from someone who tried to communicate the problems he had, or the problems he might think the reader might have. How you can see a person writing the document. How he tries to focus on the way you are going to implemnt a plug-in, not on the way they implemented the API.

A host, is a host, is a host.

And a software developer will always be a software developer. Damn, I need to write software again, no, I need to release a product again. Bring out something someone needs. Create something out of electrons. Damn, damn, damn, I need a mission. Someone else's mission, I suck at fighting my own missions.

[Update] The Photoshop API Guide needs a rewrite, they talk about 680x0, systems with 32 MB RAM and the Apple MPW compiler...

And don't get me started on this:

Photoshop plug–ins for Windows can be created using Microsoft® Visual C++, version 2.0 or later (which requires Windows NT version 3.5 or later, or Windows 95). This toolkit has been checked under Visual C++ 5.0 and Windows NT 4.0.

I will not ...

... confuse Hugh Laurie with Damian Lewis in the future.

"Ho Ho Ho. Now I have a light saber!"

The way I see it, McClane runs around for about 20 hours, kills about 37,000 storm troopers, suffers injuries which, if inflicted on mere mortals, would require 450 stitches, and still gets enough free time to figure out how the Death Star works, all with the help of a twinkie-eating police officer back on Earth whom he is communicating with on a souped-up ham radio. After 20 hours, McClane figures out the same chain reaction Achilles' Heel the Jedis knew about. After a few hours work, he sets it off just as the Death Star is preparing to fire. McClane, of course, barely escapes the explosion in a hijacked TIE-fighter.

John McClane vs. The Death Star @ WWWF Grudge Match

A Clockwork Red White Blue - There is a Constitution?

So what are your rights if your name is unjustly on the watch-list, and you'd like to be able to move about the country without being singled out by airport screeners and possibly even traffic cops for extra attention? The answer is, unfortunately, that some of your basic Constitutional rights are effectively non-existent if you happen to get caught somewhere in America's growing terrorist dragnet.

Terrorist watch list follies, and my time in the TSA's Constitution-free zone

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

[Contrast] these statements:

WSJ authors: "But now a study shows the damage is far worse than expected"

MPAA spokeswoman, indirect discourse: "She says the numbers weren't far out of line with what the industry expected."

So which is it? Far worse or not far out of line? The Journal's "source" seems to be primarily interested in drama.

Of course, the drama steals focus from the real questions (by design?), including those relating to the study's methodology. Instead, we're to assume that these studies are trustworthy, and that is a huge assumption. Why? Because whether you're the Wall Street Journal or Ars Technica, you don't get to see the study. It's private. What you get to see are "summary" points which you're supposed to take on face value. I won't repeat everything that the press materials say, because you can read them for yourself (PDF). I do want to hit some highlights, however, and note some of the massively problematic gaps in the story that should have been raised by "reporters" across the country, but weren't.

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

Never trust what you hear, read or see in the media. Never.

Now contrast these statements:

WSJ authors: "But now a study shows the damage is far worse than expected"

MPAA spokeswoman, indirect discourse: "She says the numbers weren't far out of line with what the industry expected."

So which is it? Far worse or not far out of line? The Journal's "source" seems to be primarily interested in drama.

Of course, the drama steals focus from the real questions (by design?), including those relating to the study's methodology. Instead, we're to assume that these studies are trustworthy, and that is a huge assumption. Why? Because whether you're the Wall Street Journal or Ars Technica, you don't get to see the study. It's private. What you get to see are "summary" points which you're supposed to take on face value. I won't repeat everything that the press materials say, because you can read them for yourself (PDF). I do want to hit some highlights, however, and note some of the massively problematic gaps in the story that should have been raised by "reporters" across the country, but weren't.

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

Care about almost nothing except getting a good project out the door

Hmm, getting a product out. How I miss that.
Nerdherding for Beginners � Blog Archive � First make someone responsible and put them in the middle

Nothing to kill or die for

gulli: Imagine, GWB: BBC strahlt Lennon/Bush-Mashup aus

The biggest terrorist in the world today

If would have asked the British 60 years ago: "Who is the biggest terrorist in the world today?", I think they might have given you mainly one name.

He issued a call to arms and from 1945-1948 the Irgun launched an all-out armed rebellion, attacking British installations and posts. He planned the bombing of the British administrative and military headquarters (at the luxurious King David Hotel) in Jerusalem that killed 91 people, including British officers and troops as well as Arab and Jewish civilians.
Menachem Begin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't care who is, according to the British, the biggest terrorist in the world today. The British (and the US) troops should get the fuck out of Iraq and take with them any other forces from the coalition of the gullible. Just because you have the means to invade a country doesn't mean you have to do it. Isn't it ironic that the world would have been a safer place today with Saddam Hussein still in power?

A Clockwork Red White Blue - What if the "civil war" in Iraq was intentional?

Was it intented by the US government, that the war in Iraq turned into a civil war?

By the way, two really nice paragraphs about CNN in hotels. Several months before the Iraq war, I was in a hotel and in the lobby was a TV with CNN on. The sound was muted, but the text screamed "BREAKING NEWS!!! IRAQ!!!!". I thought: "Oh my god, they started a war!", but it was some silly unimportent event.

The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress.

And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line.

New Statesman - John Pilger detects the Salvador Option

A Clockwork Red White Blue - How To Steal an Election

How To Steal an Election - Washington Post
(via fefe)

Two pieces of sh*t

when i choose mirascan from the import option of softwares
like photoshop in win xp, it crashes after the pre loader screen

However when I try to use the scanner, Mirascan apperas on the

XP will not recognise my scanner

the Mirascan software to run the scanner cannot find it on XP

Scanner not working with windows xp

Problems with the ACER MiraScan 620pt flatbed scanner

Cant get scanner to work with XP

scanner probs in xp

Acer Scanner 640P not working
... Please tell me one thing that did u install mira scan again after ... I uninstalled Mirascan
then reinstalled ... Windows ME as I have a dual boot for Windows XP and ME

mirascan windows xp - Google Groups

You just can't make this stuff up

Schneier on Security: A Real Movie-Plot Threat

Hackers copy music, eat children and are terrorists in general

Moreover, Apple agreed to improve the digital rights management software that makes it difficult for hackers to copy or post songs purchased on iTunes to Internet file-sharing networks.

WTF? The LA Times should look up Hacker

A hacker is a person who creates and modifies computer software and computer hardware, including computer programming, administration, and security-related items.
...
In computer security, a hacker is a person able to exploit a system or gain unauthorized access through skill and tactics. This usually refers to a black hat hacker.

A hacker finds a exploits in a system, he does not "copy or post" music "on the internet".

Apple Renews 99-Cent Song Deals - Los Angeles Times

You bring the cause and we bring the bombs

Live never stops to amaze me. A jewish terrorist group. Well, they are no longer actively engaged in terrorist actions.
Jewish Defense League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You're a terrorist and we will bomb you away!

As one of the few Arab-Americans in Congress, Issa has had a significant but sometimes controversial role in U.S. peace initiatives in the Middle East. He traveled to Lebanon as well as Syria in an effort to negotiate the withdrawal of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. In 2003, he appeared at a Washington rally by Iranian groups protesting against the Islamic government in Iran.

Activist Debbie Schlussel wrote a column calling him "Jihad Darrell", charging that he sympathized with Hezbollah despite its being listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Issa denied this; he later speculated that Schlussel's column might have inspired an aborted Jewish Defense League plot in 2001 to bomb his district office in San Clemente. JDL leader Irving Rubin was arrested along with Earl Krugel in connection with the plot, which reportedly had focused on other targets before shifting to Issa's office.

Darrell Issa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iraq a training group for US gangs?

Gangs claim their turf in Iraq

A child dies in Africa for every MP3 stream you record

EFF: The Season of Bad Laws, Part 3: Banning MP3 Streaming

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Unless his Highness decides to disobey the law

Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A night in jail for peace signs

At Wellesley, arrest over chalk writing leaves a mark - The Boston Globe

Buy or die you little bitch

Woot : Winners' Gallery: the Best of Contest 69
Modify a classic propaganda poster (or create a new one) for one side or the other in the pro- and anti-Microsoft conflict.