Links for 2010-02-03

Internet

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

(categories: anime software floss blogroll)

"Close yourself in the book cave. The Cave Bookshelf(EUR 3,600-EUR 5,250) designed by Sakura Adachi. I love this design, that you or your chilid can sit and read. This bookself provide reading place or cave, just and book, it is a good place you communicate with book. It features cave gives a feeling of hiding from others standing around it, books can be stored on both sides."
(categories: inventions chairs cool wantone)

Sora no Otoshimono (そらのおとしもの)and Omamori Himari (おまもりひまり) from monthly manga magazines Shonen Ace and Dragon Age respectively are set for the small screens!
(categories: anime manga television)


Anti-swearing people don’t like nerds?

Media

Screen capture from old episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit showing a nerd crossed-out sign

Watching an old episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit last night on how some people claim swearing is "destroying society", I briefly noticed this sign in the office of one of the proponents.

What's wrong with nerds!? Are we too sarcastic perhaps? I'm never sarcastic.

For those not in the know, nerds (as in Ruben-nerd) are geeks without social skills. Perhaps she's just afraid of us then.


Trialling widescreen Rubenerd theme thingy

Internet

I'm trialling a new wider version of my blog theme, and some clearer fonts for FLOSS OS users, let me know how terrible you think the changes are :). If you can't see the difference, you may need to hold down [SHIFT] while reloading the page. I almost made a typo and wrote [SHIFT] as something else.

By sheer co-incidence I realised this beta blog theme is the same size as ZombieSkittles without the border. Creepy!

Wait, update!

I reverted back to the same width I first starting blogging in back in 2004, but kept the new fonts for the FLOSS folk. Call me old fashioned. Or fickle.


Michael Atkinson steps down on net gag order!

Internet

Michael Atkinson

AdelaideNow is reporting that at 10pm Central Australian Time, South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson has:

[…] made a “humiliating” backdown and announced he will retrospectively repeal his law censoring internet comment on the state election.

[…] Mr Atkinson at 10pm released this statement: "From the feedback we’ve received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened.

"I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively."

I can attest to the number of responses, my post on the issue which was only released hours ago already had half a dozen detailed comments and trackbacks. For a silly little blog like mine that's a big deal!

I left a comment, though now that I think of it I'm disappointed that I failed to address his comment about all MPs supporting the law.

Kudos to him for coming to his senses and not continuing to fight despite evidence to the contrary… on this particular issue, perhaps there’s hope yet for other common sense issues such as R18+ games. I’m worried this was even considered a good idea first though, it shows people in power still have a great deal to learn about new media, censorship and common sense.

This closes the book… I hope. And just for fun I'll post my name and postcode on this post, for the last time.

Update

Other people's comments have been published on AdelaideNow but not mine. I suppose the 'Tiser does perform their own censorship too which is ironic given the circumstances.


South Aussie election law hurts my brain

Thoughts

Michael Atkinson

If we needed any [further] proof that Australian federal and state governments are losing the plot, this latest move by the South Australian government to restrict free speech online with regards to the next elections would be it, and in no way is it more succinctly represented than by Michael Atkinson. For someone with such a cool name, I would have expected more, I blame myself.

So here's the latest enlightened law from the state that was the second in the world to offer women's suffrage amongst other world leading political reforms: if you wish to write online about the latest South Australian state elections, you must post your name in full along with your postcode, your blood type and how many times you've been convicted of thought crimes. Well yes I made those last two up, but with the way things are going it might be less humorous in the future.

Did I mention my brain hurts

As with the Great Firewall of Australia, the key point is such a ridiculous scheme simply would not work and has obviously been dreamt up by government officials who probably use their computers by proxy through a secretary who transcribes his ramblings and dies a little inside each time. It bears repeating: it simply would not work. Technically, all other points are moot as long as this stands. Put the book down, go outside, have a Coopers or whatever it is South Australians do. Go play Roulette with ZombiePlan, that's a plan.

Such a scheme is also completely unenforceable. Sites like AdelaideNow can moderate comments that contain blatantly false names, but that would be the practical limit of their control. Names and addresses could (and would) be forged, even attempting to map an IP address to a user provided location would be iffy to impossible. Look out for that being proposed by the same government officials in the future though, and don't say I didn't warn you.

Character from Omamori Himari being hit in the head by a tennis balll

Kids, don’t post your details online! Oh wait…

Tarale penned (or would it be typed?) a scathing rebuttal (not skating or scating!) of these silly laws and even brought up an issue I hadn't considered: by forcing the posting of names and locations online, honest people who provide accurate information could be tracked down not just by the government, but those who would cause them physical harm. Online safety becomes an issue, and would the same government asking for such information take responsibility if such information was abused? Insert hollow laughter.

Michael Atkinson would clearly benefit from some education and grounding in reality, the former I doubt he would ever accept and latter he would never acknowledge. I guess it's true what that senator from Bill Maher's Religilous film said: you don't have to pass an intelligence test to serve in the [South Australian] government.

Required statement thing

I will be complying with this new law by tagging South Australian election posts with the requested information, as nonsensical as it is. My name is Ruben Schade and my current postcode is 259847.


I broke Google Reader YouTube shenanigans

Internet

Google Reader showing nothing

Google didn't seem to like me today. Firstly Google Reader gave me this blank page instead of my usual cheery Unread Items (100,000,000+) message, then less than an hour later I tried to view a YouTube video and was presented with this delightful error!

I never did have that green tea I promised myself a few days ago. I blame that.

YouTube shenanigans error


Disjointed forklift-hit observations

Thoughts

A forklift!

Have you ever walked down a street on a particular day of the week — any of them will do — and suddenly realised that you should be walking alongside the street not down it? Really, nobody should be walking down a street, unless its one of those pedestrian ones that are closed off to traffic, otherwise a car might come out of nowhere and clip you on a part of your body that had previously never been hit by a vechile before. Unless you've walked down a street before, which you may or may not have done.

As you may have noticed in the previous paragraph, I can't spell vechile. According to my spell checker here its actually spelt vehcile, wait, vehicle. Every single time I try and write that word I know there has to be an h and a c in there somewhere, but I can never remember where, and I always end up spelling it as if the word is pronounced with a German ch sound. Which is ridiculous because the word vehcile isn't pronounced that way. Argh I spelt it wrong again!

I hope you’re talking notes.

Taking notes, I hope you're taking notes. Wasn't that the name of a movie starring Angelique Kidjo? No, wait, I meant Angelina Jolie. Angelique Kidjo is one of my favourite singers, last time I checked Angelique Kidjo couldn't sing. Wait, I mean Angelina Jolie couldn't sing. Why am I having so much trouble remembering which words and names I'm talking about?

See I was walking alongside the street this afternoon (see, I didn't say down the street) when out of nowhere… wait hold on, stop right there. Nothing can come out of nowhere, unless nowhere is subspace or the dawn of existence. Presumably this thing didn't appear out of nowhere, it would have had to come from somewhere.

Grilled cheese sandwiches

Sheesh, will you stop interrupting me and let me finish?

No, sheesh isn’t even a word. Sheesh.

So I was walking alongside the street this afternoon (see, I didn't say down the street) when out of… somewhere a… argh now I can't remember what it was! It was something to do with forklifts… a forklift, that's it. So this forklift comes out of nowhere and jabs me in the leg as it's going past.

Rochor and surrounds in The Singapore

Now get this, this… forklift, was travelling down Rochor Road, a busy Singapore thoroughfare for both pedestrians and traffic (do pedestrians count as traffic?) when I realised that thoroughfare sounds like a dog racing track. No, that's not what I was going to discuss. So this gosh darn forklift, out of nowhere, wait, somewhere is driving inexplicably down a pedestrian footpath — as opposed to one of those vechile footpaths… damn it now I've misspelled vechile again!

So there you have it, this post wrapped itself around back to the beginning and to the central theme and all that very nicely don't you think? One would think I should get a literary award for literary genius, or at the very least an award for outstanding writing or literary genius. I could give my acceptance speech and talk about the time I was injured by a forklift driving down a footpath behind me. Couldn't be any worse than half the speeches people give, statistically speaking.

My leg hurts.


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Links for 2010-02-01

Internet

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Not sure whether to laugh or be nervous. Maybe I'll nervously laugh
(categories: news politics unitedstates neocons scary funny)


Adobe attacks… with figures!

Internet

Apple with Flash, Google with Internet Explorer 6

Adobe has responded to the lack of Flash on the new iPad, that Apple tablet device thingy if you haven't heard of it because you were teleported into the future or have been asleep for a few days.

[…] without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

Three observations I'll observe (observe observations, no, really?) in rapid-fire succession. One, where did they get those suspect figures from? Two, I was unaware YouTube accounted for less than 25% of online video. Three, 98% of irritating online advertisements and 90% of browser crashes are the fault of Flash which they conveniently failed to mention. Four, I created those numbers out of thin air much like I suspect they did. Those were four observations, but number one and four were related you see.

This morning I defended Apple's decision to not include Flash and compared it to Google deciding to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6. So far I haven't had any angry replies to it yet, perhaps it's the timezone difference.