This guy is so fucked. Unless you've been living in a bubble, you've probably heard about the massive wildfires that have sweeping across the Melbourne region of Australia. Over 1,800 homes have been destroyed and nearly 200 have been people killed as a direct result of the fire.The suspect, whose identity was banned from publication by a magistrate because of the risk of reprisal attacks against him or his family, was formally charged with one count of arson causing death, one of intentionally lighting a wildfire, and one of possessing child pornography, Victoria police said.
Detectives arrested the man Friday and questioned him for several hours in Morwell, 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of the state capital Melbourne, police said. He was charged in a magistrate's court, but did not appear in the courtroom, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
He was ordered held in custody and to undergo psychiatric evaluation, ABC said. He was taken to Melbourne, where another hearing was set for Monday.
[...]
If found guilty, the man faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison for the deadly arson charge, and a maximum of 15 years on the second arson charge. Five years in prison is the maximum penalty for possessing child porn.
The arson charges were connected to a fire near the town of Churchill, about 125 miles southeast of Melbourne, that killed at least 21 people. It was one of hundreds of fires that blackened 1,500 square miles of forests and farms in Victoria state.
Experts say arson can be hard to prove. Physical evidence usually goes up in smoke or is taken away by arsonists, said Thomas Fee, a former president of the U.S. International Association of Arson Investigators.
Even more difficult to prove is murder by arson. Wildfires often join one another, making it tough to link a fire set by an arsonist with the blaze that eventually kills people, said Damon Muller, who has researched arsonists for the Australian Institute of Criminology.
The scale of the disaster became clearer Friday, when the state government said it had reached a more thorough tally of homes destroyed and put that number at 1,831 — more than double its earlier figure of 762. The number of people left homeless or who fled their homes and have not returned also rose to 7,000, from 5,000.
Police say they believe at least one other fire — the one that all but destroyed the town of Marysville, about 60 miles north of Melbourne — resulted from foul play.
Marysville is believed to have the biggest toll of any place — up to 100 people killed in a population of 500.
- Source
The man's identity has since been exposed. His name, a photo, and his address has appeared on several Facebook sites created by those outraged by the horrible events.At least three Facebook groups have been created to name the alleged arsonist, who it has emerged was a volunteer firefighter.
At a Victoria court hearing today, magistrate John Klestadt lifted the suppression order on Brendan Sokaluk's name but ordered that his photograph and address should not be released.
[...]
Sokaluk's lawyer, Helen Spowart, urged the court to continue the suppression of his name amid serious concerns for his safety and that of his family.
"This is an extraordinary case," she said. "The level of emotion and anger and disgust that the alleged offences have aroused in the community is unprecedented ... he remains in risk while in custody."
It was also revealed Sokaluk joined the Churchill brigade of the country fire authority in the late 80s before the service introduced stringent screening and police checks of volunteers.
He left the brigade in the 90s, trying to rejoin twice but being rejected, the Melbourne Age reported.
On his MySpace page, Sokaluk describes himself as a "young happy male" who wants to meet a woman and get married.
"My interest are to enjoy life to the fallest [sic]," he writes. He lists "mother earth" as his hero because "without her we all would be dead".
Kieran Walshe, the Victoria deputy police commissioner announced that the death toll from the fires had risen to 189.
- Source
Child porn, of course, is the least of this guy's problems, but I think it gives a bit of insight of how truly fucked in the head this guy most likely is.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Australia arsonist charge with... kiddie porn?
An encyclopedic collection of ignorance.
There is more than just one wiki out there. The format of Wikipedia has been used for many things. World of Warcraft, Fallout, D&D, and many other things. It's a useful template to use for any information-based web-compilation. There is even a conservative Wikipedia called, Conservapedia.
Now, I'm not against conservatism, but I am gainst the idea of a "conservative" wikipedia. Primarily because such a thing is not fact-based, but pure propaganda. A circle-jerk for idiots that like to think that hating fags makes them conservatise, when in all reality it just makes them bigots. These are the types of folks that George Will and Buckley Jr. despised and would maintain were merely fringe elements. Well, Palin showed that those "fringe elements" are running the fucking show nowadays.
Looking at Conservapedia, I saw this in their "News" section:The Conservapedia evolution article has sprinted past the 500,000 view mark! This is bad news for the dogmatic evolutionists who are aware that in 2006, the prestigious science journal Science reported concerning the United States: "The percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005. Meanwhile the fraction of Americans unsure about evolution has soared from 7 per cent in 1985 to 21 per cent last year."[9] Watch the internet continue to grind down evolutionism!
- Source
Asides from nearly having my eyes roll into the back of my head, I think I almost had a seizure. "Watch the internet continue to grind down evolutionism!" That can be better put: "watch the internet continue to increase ignorance!"
Bless Oghma, I think I need to stop reading shit like this or else I'll surely be dead before I turn 30.
Krugman: USA hs had zero wealth creation in the 21st century.
This isn't merely just Paul Krugman's opinion, although his Nobel Prize winning opinion does carry a lot of weight. This is evident from a Federal Reserve report showing savings amongst US citizens has plummeted drastically and that wealth creation has remained static for many or declined. This is not good news.By now everyone knows the sad tale of Bernard Madoff’s duped investors. They looked at their statements and thought they were rich. But then, one day, they discovered to their horror that their supposed wealth was a figment of someone else’s imagination.
Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened to America as a whole in the first decade of the 21st century.
Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.
At one level this should come as no surprise. For most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?
Yet until very recently Americans believed they were getting richer, because they received statements saying that their houses and stock portfolios were appreciating in value faster than their debts were increasing. And if the belief of many Americans that they could count on capital gains forever sounds naïve, it’s worth remembering just how many influential voices — notably in right-leaning publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and National Review — promoted that belief, and ridiculed those who worried about low savings and high levels of debt.
Then reality struck, and it turned out that the worriers had been right all along. The surge in asset values had been an illusion — but the surge in debt had been all too real.
So now we’re in trouble — deeper trouble, I think, than most people realize even now. And I’m not just talking about the dwindling band of forecasters who still insist that the economy will snap back any day now.
For this is a broad-based mess. Everyone talks about the problems of the banks, which are indeed in even worse shape than the rest of the system. But the banks aren’t the only players with too much debt and too few assets; the same description applies to the private sector as a whole.
And as the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out in the 1930s, the things people and companies do when they realize they have too much debt tend to be self-defeating when everyone tries to do them at the same time. Attempts to sell assets and pay off debt deepen the plunge in asset prices, further reducing net worth. Attempts to save more translate into a collapse of consumer demand, deepening the economic slump.
Are policy makers ready to do what it takes to break this vicious circle? In principle, yes. Government officials understand the issue: we need to “contain what is a very damaging and potentially deflationary spiral,” says Lawrence Summers, a top Obama economic adviser.
In practice, however, the policies currently on offer don’t look adequate to the challenge. The fiscal stimulus plan, while it will certainly help, probably won’t do more than mitigate the economic side effects of debt deflation. And the much-awaited announcement of the bank rescue plan left everyone confused rather than reassured.
There’s hope that the bank rescue will eventually turn into something stronger. It has been interesting to watch the idea of temporary bank nationalization move from the fringe to mainstream acceptance, with even Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham conceding that it may be necessary. But even if we eventually do what’s needed on the bank front, that will solve only part of the problem.
If you want to see what it really takes to boot the economy out of a debt trap, look at the large public works program, otherwise known as World War II, that ended the Great Depression. The war didn’t just lead to full employment. It also led to rapidly rising incomes and substantial inflation, all with virtually no borrowing by the private sector. By 1945 the government’s debt had soared, but the ratio of private-sector debt to G.D.P. was only half what it had been in 1940. And this low level of private debt helped set the stage for the great postwar boom.
Since nothing like that is on the table, or seems likely to get on the table any time soon, it will take years for families and firms to work off the debt they ran up so blithely. The odds are that the legacy of our time of illusion — our decade at Bernie’s — will be a long, painful slump.
- Source
WTF is with all the breeding?
There was the psycho bitch with the octuplets, Nadya Suleman. Asides from already having six children, an receiving food stamps, she decided to shit out some more kids. She hit the jackpot and crapped out a might fine litter of eight. Thus bringing the total brood count to 14. Fan-fucking-tastic that she's on food stamps and her current plan seems to soliciting donations from a website she has set up.
As if that wasn't enough, the same fertility doctor that helped Nadya Suleman become a freakish fetus-shitter has helped a 49-year old woman become pregnant with quadruplets.The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Dr. Michael Kamrava treated another patient at his Beverly Hills clinic, and she is pregnant with quadruplets.
Kamrava reportedly transferred at least seven embryos, made from donor eggs, into the unnamed 49-year-old woman.
She already has three adult children from a previous marriage and reportedly wanted one more child with her second husband, who is in his 30s.
The woman is currently five months pregnant and is hospitalized at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, according to the report.
She originally arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles for unspecified treatment but was transferred last week to the county medical center because she is uninsured, the Times reported.
- Source
Great. So this woman doesn't even have enough money for fucking insurance, yet she's gearing up to give birth to 4 children. Wonderful. I'm sure things will go over great. Maybe she can start a website for donations, too.
As if to not be outdone, some 13-year old kid is a father. Yep, a 13-year old.Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.
He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.
The shy lad, whose voice has not yet broken, said: “I thought it would be good to have a baby.
“I didn’t think about how we would afford it. I don’t really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10.”
^ 13-year old Alfie, 15-year old Chantelle, and Maisie Roxanne.
Alfie’s dad Dennis yesterday told how the lad does not really understand the enormity of his situation — but seemed desperate to be a devoted and responsible father.
He wanted to be the first to hold Maisie after the hospital birth. He tenderly kisses the baby and gives her a bottle.
And Dennis, 45, said: “He could have shrugged his shoulders and sat at home on his Playstation. But he has been at the hospital every day.”
Maisie was conceived after Chantelle and Alfie — just 12 at the time — had a single night of unprotected sex.
[...]
Chantelle admitted she and Alfie — who are both being supported by their parents — would be accused of being grossly irresponsible. She said: “We know we made a mistake but I wouldn’t change it now. We will be good loving parents.
“I have started a church course and I am going to do work experience helping other young mums.
“I’ll be a great mum and Alfie will be a great dad.”
[...]
Britain’s youngest known father is Sean Stewart. He became a dad at 12 when the girl next door, 15-year-old Emma Webster, gave birth in Sharnbrook, Bedford, in 1998. They split six months later.
- Source
I am reminded of the lyrics from the Harvey Danger song, Flagpole Sitter.
been around the world and found
that only stupid people are breeding
the cretins cloning and feeding
Harvey Danger Flagpole Sitter
^ Remember this music video? ^
Twitter awards? For what? The best shitter?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Yet another reason why not to shop at GameStop.
As someone who primarily plays their vidja games on the PC, I don't have much use for places like GameStop. Their used games are overpriced, and I don't even own a console that's newer than the Playstation 1. I much rather prefer to buy my used NES and Genesis carts from ebay or from places like JJ Games (great service, excellent prices. okay, done with the plug).
Still, that doesn't mean that I don't care about how shitty GameStop is as a company, let alone a video game retailer. Asides from extremely poor trade-in value where they give you $10 for new games, like Killzone 2, and then sell that game for $40, they are notorious for demanding employees constantly push for pre-order sales and Game Informer subscriptions. There is a lot of debate as to whether there is actual commission-like pressure on these employees that is then tabulated in "employee reviews" that determine how many hours they get or whether they are let go.
One thing that is not in dispute is that they use fucked up Maestro debit cards to pay their employees who do not have direct-deposit. What's so bad about this? Read on.Remember our post on student loan debit cards? The cards are pitched as a great convenience, or less expensive to distribute than paper checks, or more secure, when in reality they're germy with hidden fees that slowly nickel and dime your balance. Turns out, GameStop uses a similar system to pay its employees.
An anonymous GameStop employee writes,It's a Comdata card (with fees) or direct deposit, but they really encourage you to use the Comdata cards. [See rebuttal to this in the comment below.]
They load your paycheck onto it, every two weeks (pretty standard), and you're supposed to have one free transaction after each payroll deposit.
Gamestop is one employer who uses this service with little/no reason to. They are the world's largest specialty videogames retailer, and they do not have the "logistics" issues that other industries (Trucking, in particular) have that even possibly warrants the use of this horrible little card.
They claim it is because many of their employees are younger, and do not have bank accounts. That's the only reasoning I've heard from them, after months of (somewhat muted, I needed my job, however stingy the hours were and however minimum wage it may have been) complaining and questioning.
I would love to see some evidence that any other company of Gamestop's size/market share uses this system...
This obviously isn't directly a consumer issue, although if you work there and read the Consumerist, you can see why we'd suggest you opt for direct deposit and save yourself a ton of hidden fees, or pull out all the cash using your single free withdrawal. In a more general sense, however, we think it demonstrates GameStop's hostile attitude toward its own workforce. Forget that nonsensical "our employees don't have bank accounts" excuse; the only valid reason we can think of for a company to use Comdata is to save money on payroll fees, by passing the cost on to its own employees under the ruse of a cash card being more "convenient." It's yet another reason why we don't like to shop at GameStop anymore.
- Source
I first saw this story over at Kotaku.com, another Gawker blogging site:GameStop employees can't get paper checks. True, most of the civilized world is on direct deposit by now. But for GameStoppers who aren't, the only alternative is a cash card that nickel-and-dimes them.
Consumerist talked about this in the past week. GameStop, as well as many retailers in the same market, offer direct deposit and these "Maestro" cards, which are inconvenient to use and which deduct fees if you use it more than once in a month.
According to a GameStop employee who contacted Consumerist, the drawbacks are legion. Checking one's balance can only be done over the phone. Literature that comes with the card encourages using it for everyday purchases, but is vague on what kind of transaction fee that incurs (from 25 cents to a dollar). ATMs universally consider the card out of network and pile on their own fees. You can't get cash back on top of a purchase like you can with a debit card. And the only way to get money out of the card and into your account, without doing an ATM withdrawal (remember, ATMs don't dispense coins or usually anything less than a $20 bill) is to do so at the bank level, which often incurs its own set of fees.
GameStop's justification for this is that many of its employees are teenagers and do not have bank accounts. That's a cop-out. Legal age to work in most states is 15, and while I don't have stats in front of me, I can scarcely imagine that the majority of kids so responsible as to be working a part-time job wouldn't open bank accounts to deposit their funds.
There is some dispute as to whether managers at the store level encourage employees to take the cards over direct deposit; the company line seems to clearly encourage direct deposit.
But either way, it's total bullshit that a business of GameStop's size doesn't lay out the cash necessary to run a proper payroll operation to pay employees with a paper check if it's needed, not some ripoff card that charges fees for doing absolutely nothing. I'm sure some white paper or business study out there applauded the beancounter who thought up this anti-worker "best practice," which seems to have been adopted by many large-scale retailers because of what it shaves off the overhead.
This is just another way business in America reminds its workers that they don't create or provide anything of value. They just cost money. Fuck this team spirit, team member garbage you hear in your interview or new hire orientation. And forget larger causes like health care or retirement savings, when business will chisel and cut corners on even the basic dignities of employment - like how you are paid. Until that costs too much. Then you're fired. That's the country we've built.
- Source
I couldn't agree more with Kotaku's weekend editor, Owen Good. This practice is immensely deplorable. Here, in Virgina, local legislators have been taking a hard stance against the types of predatory practices used by payday lenders. This is way worse than that. Yes, you can avoid the whole hassle of these cards by using direct deposit, however, many former and current GameStop employees have commented that it took anywhere from a month to 4 or more to set up their direct-deposit. That means, that for at least 2 pay periods, these employees are forced to use these cards which are loaded down with hidden and excessive fees. Besides that, one should not have to choose between setting up a bank account or getting fucked over by your employer. One should never even have the option of getting fucked over by their employer!
While many may take the "whatta ya gonna do?" approach of apathy, with arms shrugged high into the air, I've decided to take the better route. I have printed a copy of the Consumerist article, along with a printed letter, and will be promptly snail-mailing it to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Sen. Jim Webb, Monday morning. I have also emailed a copy of the Consumerist article to Sen Webb. I highly suggest you do the same for your own local legislators and federal representatives. Paying your employees in this manner should be illegal. You should never have to face the option of being fucked over and having your wages unfairly garnished by overhead fees. I don't know if this is illegal, but if it's not illegal, hopefully, it will be soon enough.
Best security idea ever? I think so. And internet justice is sweet.
In a bit of a twisted tale from the Consumerist blog (which I have recently become enamored with (in case you can't tell from the other stories posted)), a man lost his iPhone. "So what?" you might say. Well, what happened afterwards is the most genius low-tech security method I've ever known. And a wonderful tale of internet justice and retribution.Do you know this guy? [ed. photos removed] He seems to be in the possession of the iPhone that Dino's dad lost. Before losing the phone, his dad set up a rule where any email sent from the phone blind-cc'ed his personal email address, which we think is a pretty brilliant low-tech security solution for tracking down a lost/stolen phone or laptop.
Was hoping you could give me some advice. My dad (64) lost his iphone today. He went to the At&T store and had the service stopped and got a SIM card to put into his old cell phone.
If he found the phone and didn't immediately bother looking through it for a way to contact the owner, we imagine he plans on keeping it. If it was stolen, we're pretty certain shame will not help. But who knows?
Well he checked his aol account tonight and saw pictures of some guy holding an iphone up and taking pics in the mirror. My dad had it set up that he was BCC on emails sent out on the iphone.
We emailed the the recipient of the emails to ask who was in these pictures and that we would like the phone back. He hasn't responded back yet.
What should we do? I think in the morning my dad will file a report with the police. I tried googling the email address ([redacted]@hotmail.com) and no luck with that. Do you have any other advice we should do to get back the phone?
I posted the pics on flickr. If this is seen widely on the Internet do you think it would shame the guy into give us back the phone?
- Dino A.
Paramus , NJ
One guy whose Sidekick got stolen was able to track down the culprits because they took pictures of themselves on it. He set up a site posting the pictures and an ad-hoc internet manhunt formed and eventually they caught the guy.
On the off chance this was all a good-natured mixup (or he bought it used and didn't know it was stolen/lost), we'll post your story.
You might want to email him again with a detailed description of what was on the phone, as well as any identifying marks and likely places where it was lost or stolen, so that he knows you're not a scammer yourself.
Oh, and before anyone does or says anything too douche-y about the guy in the photos, remember that we really don't know how he came about it.
- Source
Turns out the Consumerist fanbase was able to find the guy who stole the phone with a mere 55 minutes.Wow, that was impressive! In less than one hour after we posted about Dino's dad's lost iPhone, Consumerist readers were able to locate his Facebook and Hi5 accounts, track down his name and home address, and even get him to respond via email—something Dino and his dad weren't able to do yesterday. Dino just wrote us and said "Michael Smith/Emerson" contacted him and promised to return the phone tomorrow.
OMG you guys are the best. Guess what? The guy called and will give my dad his phone back tomorrow. He saw this blog and asked to take down the pictures. Thank you very much for your help. The power of the internet is amazing. I will take down his pics on Flickr. I am glad this guy is doing the right thing and returning lost property. Thank you very much Consumerist! You have made my dad's day.
Dino adds, "He said he found it in a parking lot, which is probably what happened... possibly fell off a belt holster my dad uses." But here's something that's more interesting, especially in light of the kid's "I was going to return it" defense:My dad also had a sticker on the back of the phone with his home phone number on it. But looks like the kid removed it before he took the self pics (something that someone who was going to return a phone from the get go wouldn't have done).
Anyway thanks again for your help, i was telling my dad he's famous now. But i'll let you know once my dad get the phone back tomorrow.
- Source
The iPhone was eventually returned and internet justice has done its work. Take that bad guys!
Beware! What you post on Facebook. It doesn't belong to you anymore.
I don't use Facebook, hell I barely use MySapce. I just don't care enough about the whole "cyber social networking" thing enough. I don't have a brand or anything that I want to try to sell or promote. Even this blog is purely for me, and I don't make any money in any shape or fashion, hence why there's no advertisements. I do, however, have a few works of mine in my MySpace picture gallery and news of Facebook's updated ToS (Terms of Use) makes me wonder if perhaps I should consider removing that content.Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.
Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
That language is the same as in the old TOS, but there was an important couple of lines at the end of that section that have been removed:You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
Furthermore, the "Termination" section near the end of the TOs states:The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
Make sure you never upload anything you don't feel comfortable giving away forever, because it's Facebook's now.
Oh, you also
agree to arbitration, naturally. Have fun with that.
- Source
What does this mean? Let's say I upload some really snazzy graphics that I've done that are completely my own IP. Facebook can take those images and use them in an advertisement. Or they can use them in a layout scheme, or they can use it for... well, anything really. And do I get any payment or even acknowledgment for my works being used? No. No, I don't. To take it further, let's say you're a band. You have some tunes on Facebook to promote yourself. Facebook can use your music in a commercial and is not required to give you anything.
Facebook's ToS has, apparently, always been like this. However, the kicker is, the new ToS makes it so that even if you delete your content, FAcebook owns it. And they own it forever.
Pay to imprison: Judges paid millions to send kids to privately run juvie.
I'm not a fan of privatized prisons. There's a lot of reasons why, and I'm not going to get into them. This article, however, shocked me on several fronts. Not only because I didn't know that juvenile detention centers were also being privatized (I should have presumed as much, I guess), but because this is one reason as to why I had never thought, nor heard of, to despise private prisons for.Two Pennsylvania judges were sued in federal court this past week for allegedly taking $2.6 million in kickbacks from private juvenile detention facilities. In exchange, they sentenced hundreds of youths to the centers over the past 5 years. One of the judges, Mark Ciavarella, sent 1 out of 4 defendants to the centers, compared to a statewide rate of 1 in 10.
Judge Michael Conahan is accused of securing the contracts from PA Child Care's former owner, Robert Powell, while Judge Ciavarella did the dirty work of keeping the private facilities well-stocked with new wards. With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Both men pleaded guilty to fraud on Thursday, and if the plea is accepted by the court, they'll spend 87 months in prison, be forced to resign from the bench and the bar, and lose their pension benefits.
Separately, plaintiffs in the federal suits are also suing the former and current owners of PA Child Care, as well as the owner of the construction company that built the detention centers. The feds, on the other hand, have said they're not targeting PA child Care in their corruption probe, which has been under new ownership since last summer.
- Source
Apple wants to fine and jail iPhone jailbreakers.
Jailbreaking. It might conjure the image of Andy Dufresne tunneling out of Shawshank Prison, arising victoriously in the pouring rain as lightning thunders above, but it has a much different meaning when applied to phones. What it means is, if you want to install a third party application, use a different wallpaper, and/or add a ringtone, you must break through Apple's protection scheme.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has delivered a petition to congress asking for a law to protect those that "jailbreak" their phones. Apple, in its usual "any color as long as it's black" approach has filed an objection. Not only do they not want you to be able to install whatever you want, they also want fines of "up to $2,500" per act, meaning that adding a wallpaper, ringtone, and two third party apps could net you up to $10,000 in fines. Not to be outdone by itself, Apple has also recommended that jail time of up five years for those that break those phones for financial gain. Meaning that if someone charged money for a third party app or a program that enabled jailbreaking iPhones, they could be sentenced to real prison time, where jailbreaking isn't quite as easy and can result in actual death.The big question, of course, is who really owns your damned phone? Apple says that bypassing their software restrictions messes with the "chain of trust" they've set up and screws up their "ecosystem." The EFF counters that if you apply Apple's argument to another industry, it falls apart:
One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.
On a more serious note, they point out:But the courts have long recognized that copying software while reverse engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software, a body of law that Apple conveniently fails to mention.
The EFF has set up a "Free Your Phone" website where you can follow the case as it moves before the Library of Congress: www.freeyourphone.org.
- Source
Now, I know I'm hard on Apple, probably a little bit unfairly at times. That's because I expect a company that holds itself as so much better for the consumer to, you know, actually stand by its words. It's also because Apple has a long history of bullshit, such as claiming that it owns the copyright to the mouse, that it owns the rights to the "trash bin" concept in software, and Jobs' long-time stance against unapproved third party applications for the Mac and charging for their SDK. In fact, it was the stance of the latter that catapulted Windows into being the dominant OS that it is today. Good job, Steve!
Within all due credit, I love the ease of use and the functionality of OS X, although I do find its platform to be rather shallow at times and not particularly useful for mass data storage and retrieval. I love its embedded Post Script and its wonderful capability of handling fonts. So, I guess it would be fair to say that I love OS X, but hate Apple. And this recent move by them only seeks to cement the views of so many detractors.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Half Life 2: Escape From City-17. A short movie.
This is pretty impressive. Even more so considering it was done for a measly $500. It's only a little over 5 minutes long, but is rather remarkable in its quality.
^ HL2: Escape From City-17 (a fan-made short movie) ^
nothing after the jump
more...
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
King of Kong goes big screen.
If you haven't seen King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters, then you really need to. Yes, the idea seems really silly and stupid, who the fuck would ever really care so much about having the highest score in Donkey Kong? Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, that's who! The whole "who cares?" question begins to wear thin when you consider just how insane their accomplishments are and the perks that they get for holding such obscure titles.
Billy Mitchell was honored by Namco president, Masaya Nakamura, at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show for being the first person to ever get a perfect game in Pac Man. Also consider that Steve Wiebe (pronounced "wee bee") has been invited to the 2008 E for All Expo, Microsoft's MIX08 at the Venetian Casino in Vegas, appeared as himself on the TV show Code Monkeys, and has done several talk show appearances. Yeah, it seems silly as shit until you find out these guys are getting paid to fly out to Vegas, Tokyo, etc. to go to these events and play a shit-ton of Donkey Kong. Couple that with the awe that these accomplishments aren't as easy as some might think.
Steve Wiebe is one of only two people in the world to have gotten to the Donkey Kong "kill screen" at a public event. Only two people in the world have broken a million points in Donkey Kong at a public event. Those two people? Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. Think about that for a second and then take into account that Donkey Kong has been around since 1981. Mainstream acknowledgment of competitive gaming can be traced back to 1983. So, it's not like nobody has tried. Before Steve Wiebe's attempt, the second highest Donkey Score was established in 2001. Billy Mitchell's pre-Wiebe leading score was established in 1982.
King of Kong, obviously has come and gone. It's on DVD and it had its short theater run. Now, the story of Steve Wiebe, a laid off Boeing engineer, battling the notorious Billy Mitchell is being made into a narrative film. IE: a normal movie, not a documentary.Yesterday we talked with Seth Gordon, who directed The King of Kong as well as the upcoming Four Christmases and is set to direct the narrative remake, and got a few updates from him about changes they'll make and the status of the project.
Gordon explained that "from the moment we first thought, people might want to see [the documentary], and therefore we might be seeking a theatrical release, it became clear that a narrative remake for it was what film studios
would really be interested in." He adds that because there's no money in documentaries, New Line always had their eyes set on the remake rights. So after New Line picked it up, the first step was to get the documentary transcribed. "That was the first pass of the script in a sense, but then we hired a real writer to come in and take that content and shape scenes." That writer is Michael Bacall, a well-known actor who recently took up screenwriting
and also penned Edgar Wright's upcoming Scott Pilgrim.
Those who have seen the doc know that there is already a great story from within the film to pull from, so in essence, not that many changes really needed to be made. "There's going to be less of the talking heads," Gordon says at first. "And we couldn't be everywhere for the making of the documentary, so some stuff had to be done that way. So we'll show the moments we weren't able to be present for, but in terms of the story, it's going to be a very similar story - about Wiebe losing his job, rediscovering Kong, thinking he's the best in the world at something only to have it taken away by a guy who won't let go of his title." Thankfully this all makes sense and it doesn't sound like too much of a departure from the original.
"We're going to try, if we can, to really reference and use the documentary where possible," Gordon adds. "To me it's about not compromising the original, if we can help it." Sounds like this is actually being treated very well - so when will it all finally come together and be given the official greenlight? "They have made a really strong, aggressive commitment to it — because it's also New Line, they know that all my time has been invested in [Four Christmases]. So I imagine it's something that'll be able to start up again pretty soon." Based on that comment, it sounds like this will be Gordon's next project after he finishes up press for Four Christmases. I can't wait to see who they cast as Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell!
- Source
I can't wait, either. Billy Mitchell may be the current Donkey Kong lead score holder (he later beat Wiebe's record again), but Steve Wiebe is the true King of Kong.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Do they know something you don't?
What would you do if you saw road signs warning of "ZOMBIES IN AREA" and "ZOMBIES AHEAD"? Me, I'd take an immediate detour to grab guns, ammo, and canned food. Late for work? Fuck it! There isn't going to be a work after the zombie apocalypse, pal.
Turns out, numerous Austin, Texas residents were faced with just such a dillema.Austin drivers making their morning commute were in for a surprise when two road signs on a busy stretch of road were taken over by hackers. The signs near the intersection of Lamar and Martin Luther King boulevards usually warn drivers about upcoming construction, but Monday morning they warned of "zombies ahead."
"I thought it was pretty funny," said University of Texas sophomore Jane Shin, who saw the signs while driving down Lamar Bouelvard with friends Sunday night. "We wondered who did it."
The City of Austin does not own the signs, but they are responsible for the message. The contractor on the construction project owns the signs. A city spokesperson said the hacked messages were only up for a few hours, until the construction project manager saw them during his morning commute and immediately ordered them to be changed back.
"Even though this may seem amusing to a lot of people, this is really serious, and it is a crime," said Austin Public Works spokesperson Sara Hartley. "And you can be indicted for it, and we want to make sure our traffic on the roadways stays safe."
Hartley said though it was a locked sign, the padlock for it was cut. Signs such as these have a computer inside that is password-protected.
"And so they had to break in and hack into the computer to do it, so they were pretty determined," said Hartley.
This crime is a class C misdemeanor in Texas, and Hartley said it endangers the public.
"The big problem is public safety," said Hartley. "Those signs are out there to help our traffic on the roadway to stay safe and to know what's coming up."
KXAN Austin News cameras caught many drivers slowing down to read the signs as they approached. Some read, "Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!"
Hartley said the city will discuss more secure safety measures with the manufacturer of the signs.
Speculation among the tech-savvy on the Internet is that the signs were inspired by the video game Call of Duty 5, World at War, which is the top game in the country right now and features "nazi zombies," or an upcoming movie about zombies called "Dead Snow" (an official selection at Sundance '09). There are also several online sites that teach people how to break into these construction signs.
- Source
^ KXAN Austin News Report ^
^ Bush has a zombie plan ^
Saturday, January 24, 2009
FEAR 2 demo is fucking sweet.
It is.
Downloaded the demo on Steam. You can also get the demo from the linked website. It's coming to PS3 and 360, so console people will get to enjoy FEAR 2 the same time as us PC folks. Sorry Wii people, this is not for you.
Anyways, the motion blur plus hi-res textures made my card chunder a bit, but the game looks fantastic. Even on medium settings it looks impressive. Much like the original FEAR and Crytek's Farcry and Crysis, the sequel looks to show what a game engine is capable of.
Personally, I love this stuff. And not just FEAR (it was a fucking awesome game) and FEAR 2, but the whole engine war and the uncanny valley. CoD4 was a phenomenal game, and not just because of its story, but also because of its engine. The depth of field blurring that was used was some of the more realistic I've seen. Gears of War 2 implemented depth of field blur as well, though I think it functions a bit poorly. The use of motion blur in FEAR 2 adds such a great deal of realism to the visual effects that at times the game looks almost eerily life-like. Which is made even more unnerving when you're wandering the corridors of an elementary school as desks and chairs move by themselves, the cries of a woman sobbing rings through your ears, and you can hear your heart pounding loudly through your speakers.
Story-wise, its the same-old. It's Suspense/Horror/Survival. Alma's back and she's fucking up shop. The funny thing is, your teammates... well, I don't wanna ruin it. It's pretty funny and leaves you shouting, "what the hell do you think you're doing!? Don't do that!" The gunplay is still incredible. You can shoot people in half and blow off limbs. The particle effects are amazing. The lighting is moody, creepy, sparse, and your flashlight helps a lot less than in the first FEAR. Plenty of gore spatter on the walls,floors, ceilings. Found a dismember head in a toilet. The music actually seems a lot creepier, as if that was possible. Slow-mo is still ass-tons of fun and is actually needed now. The mech combat was incredibly fun, but felt a bit overpowered. Kind of how the Death From Above mission felt in CoD4.
My only complaint about the demo would be that its too damn short.
Friday, January 23, 2009
DoW II multiplayer beta impressions.
When at looking at videos of multiplayer, and hearing that there is building in multiplayer, one would logically think that DoW II's multiplayer would play somewhat similar to DoW's. Well, it doesn't. Not even close. In fact, this game completely breaks the traditional idea of RTS and throws it a curve ball. "At last, back to war."
Gone is the entire notion of base building. There's still tech-trees, to an extent, but they are highly streamlined. There's still resource gathering, but it works in a very different dynamic. There is still "building" in DoW II, but the only building you'll ever do is creating generators around power nodes and having your hero deploy turrets. Even then, you can only deploy turrets with certain commanders.
Basically, the game works like this: You have one base, and only one base. You cannot move this base nor can you build another. There are no builder units for you to use. There are, however, still resource points you need to capture. There are power nodes, which give you power, and requisition nodes, which give you requisition. Captured power nodes can build generators (at the cost of requisition) which will drastically increase the amount of energy created. You cannot build anything on requisition nodes. This makes requisition the harder resource to maintain and the real focal point of the game. Combat will constantly erupt on the battlefield around requisition rather than energy. When a unit from a squad dies, they must either be near a base or be near a vehicle that can allow them to reinforce. It's an odd system at first, but it increases the strategy of the battles a lot more since you will probably have to retreat units occasionally to reinforce, giving up ground, or subject your reinforcement vehicle to potential damage and loss.
One of the more interesting dynamics of the game is that your units level up. This grants you higher health and, I presume, other bonuses. That is why the notion of retreating, using cover, and properly reinforcing your units is so important. Without it, you will have to constantly spend exorbitant amounts of requisition on units, which simply isn't feasible unless you control most of the req nodes on the map. I haven't really played with the other races, but the Space Marine units are pretty expensive. (though, they do pack one hell of a punch) This means that keeping those units alive and letting them level up is the key winning strategy. It's an interesting dynamic and is so drastically different from how old-school RTSes (like Warcraft) worked. The idea of building up an army and sending wave after wave to the slaughter, whittling down your enemy, just isn't reasonable in DoW II. Instead, combat is touch-and-go with a series of skirmishes erupting out on the field. You can have big stand-down battles, but you will be left very vulnerable.
Initially, DoW II reminds me of a mash-up of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and Relic's previous title, Company of Heroes. The former was a massive let-down and the later a wonderful title that breathed fresh air into the RTS genre. I don't quite yet know if I can say that I like DoW II or don't like it. The one thing I will say about DoW II: I am greatly intrigued and look forward to trying some more multiplayer. It's not exactly an endorsement, but the gameplay is good enough to make me want to try it more. At first I thought the gameplay was slow, too simplistic, and just underwhelming. I'm now realizing that it is much more complex than it seems and that even 1v1 games can get to be pretty insanely hectic.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Y'know it's hard out there for a dentist...
It truly is. The future of dentistry is in decline. Why? Because people just aren't loosing their teeth like they used to.
As long as there are hockey players, there will be niche markets for false teeth. But the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn't much of one. Toothlessness has declined 60 percent in the United States since 1960. Baby boomers will be the first generation in human history typically to go to their graves with most of their teeth.
The introduction of cavity-preventing fluoride into drinking water and toothpaste is viewed as one of the 10 greatest public health accomplishments of the 20th century, right up there with vaccinations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And it's not just your flossing and brushing (like you should) that is creating this pandemic for dental professionals, it's also regrowing teeth. The whole idea of dentures will become a bygone thought. Lose a tooth? Fuck it! Grow some more and shove 'em in there. All thanks to the miracles of stem cells. (which will probably all cause our brains to implode or stricken us with horrendous mutations later on in life)
So what's the future of dentures?
"Hopefully, they will become a relic," says Mary MacDougall, director of the Institute of Oral Health Research at the University of Alabama. "Like Washington's false teeth."
Regenerating a whole tooth is no less complicated than rebuilding a whole heart, says Songtao Shi, of the University of Southern California, who heads a team working on creating such a tooth.
Not only do you have to create smart tissue (nerves), strong tissue (ligaments) and soft tissue (pulp), you've got to build enamel -- by far the hardest structural element in the body. And you have to have openings for blood vessels and nerves. And you have to make the whole thing stick together. And you have to anchor it in bone. And then you have to make the entire arrangement last a lifetime in the juicy stew of bacteria that is your mouth.- Source
Okay, maybe it isn't so easy to do. But we'll get there one day.
"Welcome! To the world of tomorrow!"
more...
Dawn of War II multiplayer beta access.
If you're into RTS games, you should know about Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. If you're a fan of Games Workshop, especially the Warhammer 40k franchise, either you've played this or missed out on one of the best tabletop to video game translations ever to be based on a GW license.
Anyways, the multiplayer beta for Dawn of War II is out on Steam right now. But there's a catch. You must have purchased Dawn of War: SoulStorm (the final expansion for DoW). The good news is that you can buy SoulStorm for a whopping 75% off. At $7.50, it is simply a steal. Throw in the DoW Platinum Edition and you got the whole set.
Unfortunately, neither DoW, DoW II, nor Steam are Mac compatible, so you'll have to load Windows through BootCamp. I don't think you can use Crossover, either. DoW requires DirectX 9 and (I think) Crossover only emulates up to DirectX 8. So, it's Windows or bust.
I downloaded the beta just last night and haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. I'll post up my impressions after I get done purging the unclean.
"A good soldier obeys without question. A good officer commands without doubt."
^ DoW II multiplayer trailer ^
^ DoW II SPace Marines multiplayer
^ DoW II "Enemies" trailer ^
^ DoW II "Space Marines" trailer ^
Thomas Jefferson was one kinky dude.
Seriously! Not only did he knock up one of his slaves, but he knocked up two of his father-in-law's daughters!
You probably know about Sally Hemings. If not, well, she was the slave that Jefferson had an illegitimate child with. What I thought was so surprising is that Sally Hemings was, herself, the illegitimate daughter of a slave owner. That slave owner? John Wayles, father of Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, who would later become Jefferson's wife.
Yep, that's right. Jefferson not only knocked boots with one of his slaves, but was also married to that slave's half-sister. Not only did I find this pretty unbelievable, but so did interviewer Diane Rehm.
You can listen to the interview by clicking here (Real Audio) or here (Windows Media). The webpage regarding this interview can be seen here.
And, yes, Diane Rehm does have a weird voice that sounds like Hans Moleman. It's caused by the disease spasmodic dysphonia.
Robocop realer than you think.
Remember that scene in Robocop 2 where they showed the test footage of all the Robocop prototypes that didn't make it? Well, remember how they kept going crazy and attacking the scientists or killing themselves? Turns out similar incidents are no longer just a piece of fiction.
P.W. Singer, author of Wired For War, was on NPR's Fresh Air today, and he detailed just such an account. During one test, a machine equipped with an automatic machine gun turned on and, while being shown to the VIPs, automated and began aiming at the gun at the VIPs. Fortunately, it wasn't loaded. However, in South Africa, a similar such machine was being shown. These onlookers were not so lucky. The machine automated and began opening fire, killing nine people.
Other interesting tidbits Mr Singer brings up is a scientist who said that he doesn't see any legal or ethical problems with using machines in war, unless the machine repeatedly keeps killing the wrong people. In which case it is a recall issue, and still not a legal or ethical issue.
Overall, the whole piece was incredibly intriguing and should appeal to a wide range of interests. You can listen to the stream by going here and clicking the "Listen Now" link at the top left of the article. I believe the player requires Adobe Flash.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Salt & Pepper
Oddly similar to two years ago, I found a white hair a few scant days before my birthday. This time, the iridescent, pigment-less filament was sprouting forth from my chin. After my previous stark strand fell out, as hair is wont to do, I have yet to notice its re-emergence. At least, that I am aware of.
I am getting old.
As my bones begin to break
my heart slows its pace.
That is all.
more...
