Don’t worry, we didn’t drown them… all the way.

Here’s another gem of a link I’ve been saving.

Sayeth the BBC:

Mr Cheney is assumed by human rights groups to have been referring to “water boarding” – a technique in which suspects are made to think that they are drowning.

Bush, of course, refusing to get into the specifics of “interrogation” techniques in use, stuck to his now comical claim that the US does not engage in torture.

At least Tony Snow, White House spokesman, had a less comical response:

“The vice-president says he was talking in general terms about a questioning program that is legal to save American lives, and he was not referring to water boarding,” he said.

Actually, wait, that’s more comical. Of course Cheney wasn’t referring to water boarding. Of course the technique he was referring to (water boarding) is legal. Of course.

Courtesy of the BBC: Bush enters Cheney ‘torture row’.

The difference between knowing thine enemy, and hot air.

I meant to share this link some time ago, but never got around to posting it. Here it is though.

A great example still of how the Bush administration is still not able to differentiate between individuals with murder on their mind in the UK, and the politically-misguided (at worst?) Hezbollah.

Bush links Hezbollah and ‘plot’.

Spamming? Get bent.

… actually, get whipped.

My loathing for spammers knows no bounds. I would easily call it my number one pet peeve and the bane of modern society. If I ever meet you, and find out you’re a spammer, be prepared for a world of hurt. Oh, yeah. You betta’ belie’ dat!

Spam trail uncovers junk empire

Second Life Firefox 2 party, anyone?

As Mozilla gets ready to release it’s much-awaited Firefox 2.0 browser, the launch party setup has already started.

So, anyone planning on starting a Second Life launch party? I, for one, would attend! Those of you that would mock the awesome geekness that is a Second Life party should observe the validation and recognition that Second Life is getting as a medium for reaching the technologically and socially aware. So why not a Firefox launch party?

On a totally separate note, this is my first blog entry posted from Google Docs. I’m going to give this a try for a bit to see how it works out, but I can tell you right away, I don’t like the HTML it’s producing! An interesting note about Google Docs spellcheck… it catches “Google” as a spelling error! On the plus side though, at least words can be added to the dictionary.

Edit: Okay, cancel Google Docs. It won’t post to my WordPress blog for some reason.

Copy.

Paste.

Post.

Polaroid’s not-so-hot Redux

According to Engadget, Polaroid’s released their new a520 feature-less wonder.

Why doesn’t Polaroid simply go back to its roots? Why not a classic Polaroid-type digital camera that digitally stores the images and allows the option for printing to polaroids?

I think that would be innovative enough to set them apart in the already flooded digital camera market. What do you think?

King Crab is not a videogame boss

The BBC reports that Norway is undergoing a king crab invasion of sorts.

Apparently the crabs are very popular in Russia, y’know, because they taste great. Supply and demand took over, so naturally…

Soviet scientists introduced the species to the Russian Barents Sea near the border with Norway in 1960. They wanted to increase the yield from local fisheries.

Rasmus Hansson of WWF Norway, amongst other scientists, is worried about damage being done to Norweigan ocean life.

“They don’t belong here. The biodiversity convention states specifically that introduced species is one of the four most important factors for species extermination in the world.

“With the king crabs, we know that they are an enormous crab, today it’s about 20 million of them in the Barents Sea. Twenty years ago there were zero.”

What does a non-descript crab safari organizer think? Mr. Lars Petter Oeye says:

“Of course we should say it is an invasive species, and of course we don’t know enough. But it’s not like they’re really destroying the bottom of the sea.”

Well then, as long as they’re not destroying it.

Since I’m a fan of seafood, it seems obvious that the solution is to increase game quotas on the delectable crab. Mr. Hansson of the WWF, and not to mention the local fishermen, agree:

Mr Hansson says the present annual fishing quota of 300,000 crabs must be increased. Local fishermen agree – too many king crabs ruin their nets.

A scrumptious solution, to be sure!

So, everyone, grab your knives and forks and get ready to do your part. The Norweigan ocean ecosystem is at stake!

Under the lid…

“If you miss the 8:45 pm boat to Nantucket, you’re sleeping in Hyannis.”

– Nantucket Nectars (Orange Mango flavour)

Tadalist Re-ordering

Some of the things I love about web applications, as opposed to traditional thick-client applications, is the fact that they update seamlessly and often.  I love finding new features, improved designs, etc.

The guys at 37signals seem have very recently pushed out a new implementation of list reordering for Tadalist.  It’s much improved as I found the old reordering implementation to be a little too cumbersome, and not quite simple enough.  It just involved too many clicks to shuffle list items around.

If you haven’t tried Tadalist, I highly recommend it.  It’s developed by those crazy guys at 37signals, also responsible for Ruby on Rails.

Zarqawi’s DNA

As reported by the BBC, a new Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq has been named.

What’s really interesting is this tidbit:

Giving the first details of Zarqawi’s autopsy, US military doctor Steve Jones told reporters the cause of death was a blast injury to the lungs.

DNA analysis had confirmed the corpse was Zarqawi’s and it bore “no evidence of beating or any firearm injuries”, he added.

A curiosity — where did they get the original DNA to compare the corpse’s DNA with? 

The Role-Playing is Right in Front of You

Over on mmorpg.com, an editorial has been posted asking the question, "Where's the RPG in MMORPG?".

It's an interesting question to which I answer, in short: Well, the role-playing is right in front of you.

The traditional RPG has been a scripted story where players take on the role of a character or a group of characters, assuming their roles, and playing through the story. It's obviously a very difficult task to translate scripted events and stories to the (relatively) lawless and unscripted world of the MMORPG.

For those who are not aware, an MMORPG is a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. Typically they feature massive worlds populated by hundreds or thousands of people playing as whatever character they've created. Where they differ from the traditional RPG is in that they don't feature elaborate storylines.

So why would I say the role playing is right in front of you? Well, at least from my experience with EVE Online, the storyline is created by the players themselves. EVE featured more player-created drama and excitement than I ever thought possible. Perhaps it is a testament to the successful gameplay experience CCP has created for EVE Online, or perhaps it is inherent to human nature. Put a whole lot of people in a world with sufficient motivators and an engaging setting, and watch the politics and friendships become. Isn't that what an RPG is about? The difference now is that one lives the experience, and the politics and friendships can be quite real.

But if a story is what you're looking for, then at least EVE has it in spades, player-produced or not.