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links for 2011-02-21

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  • What’s going on here? In a nutshell, Ireland has been orthodox and responsible — guaranteeing all debts, engaging in savage austerity to try to pay for the cost of those guarantees, and, of course, staying on the euro. Iceland has been heterodox: capital controls, large devaluation, and a lot of debt restructuring — notice that wonderful line from the IMF, above, about how “private sector bankruptcies have led to a marked decline in external debt”. Bankrupting yourself to recovery! Seriously.

links for 2010-11-22

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links for 2010-11-19

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  • At www.TheBeatlesCompleteOnUkulele.com we will release a new recording of a Beatles song* featuring a different artist every Tuesday. A short essay will coincide with every recording and each performance will include a ukulele. (via Mac Break Weekly)
  • 1. Ship Finder 2. Sylvan Archive 3. Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer 4. Hackboy
    (tags: itunes apple bugs)
  • Global neo-liberalism did, in fact, generate a global crisis that did Ireland no favours. Nevertheless, the Irish crisis is rooted in the Irish version of global neo-liberalism. The Celtic Tiger was founded on multinational investment, which was partially Global neo-liberalism may have been initially imported from abroad, but successive governments created an indigenous variety that deserved a guaranteed Irish label. Where the Irish crisis differed from the international crisis was in its particular low-tax regime and in the triumvirate of developers, bankers, and politicians that created our home-grown financial and fiscal crisis. Ireland’s golden circle cannot opt out of responsibility for this crisis: where they changed the global model, they, in the end, only intensified the local crisis.

links for 2010-11-08

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  • People from polychronic and monochronic cultures have the same difficulties adjusting to one another as people from high-context and low-context cultures. In fact, polychronic time is characteristic of high-context people and monochronic time is characteristic of low-context people. Similarly, the first approach tends to characterize Southern cultures, while the second rules in the North (with some notable exceptions). Monochronic people tend to sequence communications as well as tasks. They would not be inclined, for instance, to interrupt a phone conversation in order to greet a third person. Polychronic people can carry on multiple conversations simultaneously - indeed, they would consider it rude not to do so.

links for 2010-11-06

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links for 2010-11-02

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links for 2010-10-28

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  • All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. 5 Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. 6 Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase. 7

links for 2010-10-20

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  • Despite the privacy watchdog and human rights groups preferring a more data-protection-friendly opt-in model, Undersecretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Adeline Wong Ching-man said the administration wanted the opt-out model. "Apart from considerations about the livelihood of people who work in the direct marketing industry, the government has to take into account the fact that some customers may want to accept calls from direct marketers," Wong told RTHK, adding that many countries favoured this option.

links for 2010-10-16

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  • In the 1970s, the surviving Fianna Fáil ex-ministers were horrified at the prospect of the emergence of a very different kind of Fianna Fáil. It was only with great difficulty that Frank Aiken, because of his concerns for the party and the country, was persuaded to stand again for election in 1973. Later, President de Valera confided his deep fears for the country to a minister in whose integrity he had confidence. And when he was dying, Seán MacEntee asked to see me to confide his deep concern for the future of the State because of what had happened to his party, Fianna Fáil. The truth is that because of the widespread lack of a tradition of civic responsibility or a sense of civic morality, for which I fear the Catholic Church must bear some of the blame, the disappearance of the revolutionary generation from government in the 1960s removed the only barrier to the spread to politics of the socially inadequate value system that we, as a people, had inherited from our colonial past.
  • We cannot endure however, the sheer sense of injustice and the total loss of moral law at the filthy hands of these so-called rogues and sleeveens (it is equally disheartening to see we have had cause over the years to establish a colloquialism to best describe such recurrent characters in Irish society). An example has been set by the leaders of this country that their selfish and cynical behaviour is an acceptable discourse in modern Ireland. Our potential to act meaningfully and righteously in this society has been shrouded in this cynicism by the greedy, ignorant brutes that head our banks and by the lacklustre unimaginative politicians that sit in our Government offices.

links for 2010-10-08

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  • “The M3 and Limerick Tunnel contracts are proof . . . that penalty clauses based on never-ending growth hang taxpayers out to dry,” PlanBetter said. “The contracts are naive in that there is no amendment or reset clause. The PPP [public private partnership] contracts highlight another failure by Government to regulate. This time, a public organisation got wrapped up in the myth of high, endless levels of growth.” It said the road authority’s reputation “has been holed below the waterline with these revelations” as it continued to ignore a 7 per cent fall in traffic over the last two years and still used a 2003 multiplier that assumes traffic growth of over 2 per cent every year. A roads authority spokesman said a “revenue guarantee arrangement” was a common feature of PPP contracts throughout Europe. Its purpose was to “enhance the fundability of these projects and attract more competitive funding terms”. He added that there had been no payments made to date to either consortium.
  • China devotes significant resources to building a world-class education system and pioneering research in competitive industries and sciences, and has had notable successes in network computing, clean energy, and military technology. But a lack of integrity among researchers is hindering China’s potential and harming collaboration between Chinese scholars and their international counterparts, scholars in China and abroad say.

links for 2010-10-05

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  • Tomato USB is an alternative Linux-based firmware for powering Broadcom-based ethernet routers. It is a modification of the famous Tomato firmware, with additional built-in support for USB port, wireless-N mode support, support for several newer router models, and various enhancements.

links for 2010-10-03

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  • Why on Earth would we want to do that, in an era of glossy animation-rendering engines, game-design ogres and sophisticated avatar worlds? Because if you want to give young students a grounding in how computers actually work, there's still nothing better than a little experience at line-by-line programming.
  • Liquid Galaxy is a cluster of computers running Google Earth to create an immersive experience. It started as a Google 20% project, and just kept growing! We built Liquid Galaxy installations in Google offices across the globe, and brought them to over a dozen different conferences. People liked it so much that we decided to share it. The latest public versions of Google Earth for Linux, Mac and Windows all include the features that make Liquid Galaxy work. This site documents how to use them, and all the supporting scripts and configuration files we use. We even put up the plans for our custom frame.

links for 2010-09-30

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links for 2010-09-28

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  • Iceland’s main interest rate was lowered on Friday to 6.25 per cent, while its ten-year debt is also trading around this level. Ireland’s cost of long-term, borrowing rose on Friday to 6.5 per cent. So Irish interest rates are now higher than Icelandic interest rates. Icelandic interest rates are now lower than Irish rates: just take that in for a second. The country that defaulted on debts, shut down its delinquent banks, burned the bondholders, allowed its currency to fall and did everything ‘wrong’, according to the Irish establishment now, is regarded by the financial markets as a safer bet than Ireland. Think about it. Iceland is a country where the residents refused to allow international bankers bleed the country dry and put the policy of making the people stump up for the banks to a referendum. Obviously, the people rejected the idea of paying foreign banks what the banks demanded.

links for 2010-09-21

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links for 2010-09-20

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links for 2010-09-18

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  • So what did the investigators find? I think you probably know the answer to that question. They found nothing. Nada. Zip. There wasn’t even a hint of a correlation between TCV exposure and either ASD, AD, or ASD with regression: There were no findings of increased risk for any of the 3 ASD outcomes. The adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for ASD associated with a 2-SD increase in ethylmercury exposure were 1.12 (0.83–1.51) for prenatal exposure, 0.88 (0.62–1.26) for exposure from birth to 1 month, 0.60 (0.36–0.99) for exposure from birth to 7 months, and 0.60 (0.32– 0.97) for exposure from birth to 20 months. In the covariate adjusted models, we found that an increase in ethylmercury exposure in 2 of the 4 exposure time periods evaluated was associated with decreased risk of each of the 3 ASD outcomes. We are not aware of a biological mechanism that would lead to this result.
  • So get your kids (and yourselves) vaccinated and save them & their playmates from this whooping cough bullshit, which is actually killing actual kids and not, you know, magically infecting them with autism. Vaccination is one of the greatest human discoveries ever -- yes, Kanye, OF ALL TIME -- has saved countless lives, and has made countless more lives significantly better. So: Buck. Up.
  • Raj Patel, in his recent book, The Value of Nothing , puts it very well. “The great unwinding of the financial sector showed that the smartest mathematical minds on the planet, backed by some of the deepest pockets, had not built a sleek engine of permanent prosperity but a clown car of trades, swaps and double dares that, inevitably, fell to bits.” .. We know, in the famous Wilde phrase that inspired the title of Patel’s book, the price of everything and the value of nothing. We place little or no value on essentials like water, clean air, diverse species and the ability to feed everyone on the planet. Instead, we place enormous value on profit, and allow it to subsume virtually every other consideration.

links for 2010-09-17

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  • In the late 1970s, a half-century trend toward growing income equality reversed itself. Ever since, U.S. incomes have grown more unequal. Middle-class incomes stagnated while the top 1 percent's share of national income climbed to 24 percent. Middle-income workers no longer benefit from productivity increases, and upward mobility, long the saving grace of the American economy, has faltered. Why is this happening? In the following 10-part series, Slate's Timothy Noah weighs eight possible causes of what Princeton economist Paul Krugman has labeled the Great Divergence. This 30-year trend "may represent the most significant change in American society in your lifetime," Noah writes, "and it's not a change for the better."

links for 2010-09-13

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  • The effectiveness of a treatment is not determined by democratic vote, it is determined via scientific method. Evidence-based therapy is the order of the day, particularly given limited resources. Because of fiscal constraints it is often extremely difficult to obtain best treatment for very ill patients. This situation can only be worsened if funds are wasted on what has been described at a recent conference of junior doctors in the UK, as “witchcraft”. The label is well merited in my opinion.

links for 2010-09-12

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  • "These sightings are happening all the time, but there's always a veil of secrecy surrounding them from governments," Gould said. "It's a global conspiracy. A few powerful countries influence and dictate the way we think."
  • Neil has written a true account of life with ADD/ADHD. Some, (not all), symptoms are misdiagnosed and are the result of implants or knowledge capsules placed there by extra terrestrial beings, some of whom are multidimensional in nature.
  • The new data.worldbank.org website that's launching today is designed to make the vast wealth of open data easier to use. The Bank is increasing the number of indicators available on the site from 339 to more than 1,200, and it has substantially improved its API. Four different languages are supported on the site, along with an improved data browser, feedback buttons, instant search, and embeddable widgets.

links for 2010-09-11

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links for 2010-09-10

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links for 2010-09-09

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links for 2010-09-08

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links for 2010-09-07

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  • In both sections there was a phone number to call to opt out. One of the sections was highlighted in a different colour, particularly to draw a reader's attention. ... Additionally, Mr Cramb has the option any time he receives a call he does not want to inform the calling company that he wishes it to remove his name from its call list, and it will gladly do so. ... Eugene R. Raitt, chairman, Hong Kong Direct Marketing Association

links for 2010-09-03

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links for 2010-09-02

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  • The time is here for responsible Americans to put up or shut up. I refer specifically to those who have credibility among the guileless and credulous citizens who have been infected with notions so carefully nurtured. We cannot afford to allow the next election to proceed under a cloud of falsehood and delusion.

links for 2010-09-01

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links for 2010-08-31

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  • A Peregrine soliton is a special type of soliton that is very large and isolated compared to its surroundings. Researchers have long thought of the Peregrine soliton as, among other things, a model for rogue waves in the ocean, huge towers of water that come seemingly out of nowhere (though often during storms) and knock over things like cruise ships.
    (tags: science sea waves)

links for 2010-08-30

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  • In collaboration with other academic researchers of sustainable public transport alternatives for Dublin, a network of Bus Rapid Transit connections was developed. These routes are distributed throughout the city. Furthermore, these measures allowed for simplifications and cost effective upgrades to the network. As part of my MA I created a set of new public transport maps that match international high standards. A city centre public transport map with this level of clarity and detail has never existed in Dublin.

links for 2010-08-22

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  • Learn the ropes for building crispy, chewy, flavor-packed fresh pizza. Remon Karian starts with an Easy Pizza Dough, then convinces us that, yes, maybe we could give it a few tosses in the air. After that, add his vibrant Pizza Sauce and bake. Oven temperatures vary, so whether using a pizza stone or a baking sheet, keep a close eye on your prize. It's ready when beautifully golden brown.
  • As I wrote yesterday, it's a mistake to overthink this. This crapola is about bigotry, racism, intolerance and hate. The euphemism "liberal" isn't enough to contain the emotion anymore so they have reverted to primitive bigotry. obviously this email is only representative of a minority, but the various strings of racism and xenophobia and religious intolerance that are binding the right together are all tied up so neatly that I thought it was worth sharing. It illustrates well the primitive impulses that characterize the far right in the Obama era.

links for 2010-08-19

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  • Last month, a senior user experience researcher at Google, Paul Adams, gave a presentation entitled "The Real Life Social Network." The 224 slides, embedded below, describe some of the problems and common user behavior on existing social web sites, and suggest how to better design that experience. While the presentation is targeted towards businesses who want to use social media to get their message out, it also serves as a roadmap for what Google will attempt to do with Google Me.

links for 2010-08-15

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links for 2010-08-12

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  • If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

links for 2010-08-10

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links for 2010-08-09

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  • Scotland’s Roman Catholic leader attacked America’s “culture of vengeance” today as he defended the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Writing in Scotland on Sunday , Cardinal Keith O’Brien said despite the “gratuitous barbarity” of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi- who the Scottish Government freed last year on compassionate grounds - were right “to affirm our own humanity”. He accused the American justice system of being based on “vengeance and retribution” and said he was glad to live in a country where “justice is tempered with mercy”.

links for 2010-08-06

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links for 2010-08-05

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links for 2010-08-04

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links for 2010-07-31

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  • These are all the Twinkie Denial Conditions described in my “Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!” Designer’s Notebook columns. Each one is an egregious design error, although many of them have appeared in otherwise great games. I’ve organized them into general categories. If you want to learn more about one, just click on it and it will take you directly to the place in the column in which I discuss it. And if you have suggestions for more, by all means send me E-mail and tell me about them! Most of these were contributed by frustrated gamers.

links for 2010-07-30

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links for 2010-07-28

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links for 2010-07-27

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links for 2010-07-26

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links for 2010-07-22

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  • (Link Fixed!) Have you ever watched a lightning storm in awe? Join the crowd. Oddly, nobody knows exactly how lightning is produced. What is known is that charges slowly separate in some clouds causing rapid electrical discharges (lightning), but how electrical charges get separated in clouds remains a topic of much research. Lightning usually takes a jagged course, rapidly heating a thin column of air to about three times the surface temperature of the Sun. The resulting shock wave starts supersonically and decays into the loud sound known as thunder. Lightning bolts are common in clouds during rainstorms, and on average 6,000 lightning bolts occur between clouds and the Earth every minute. Pictured above, an active lightning storm was recorded over Athens, Greece earlier this month.

links for 2010-07-21

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  • Have you ever watched a lightning storm in awe? Join the crowd. Oddly, nobody knows exactly how lightning is produced. What is known is that charges slowly separate in some clouds causing rapid electrical discharges (lightning), but how electrical charges get separated in clouds remains a topic of much research. Lightning usually takes a jagged course, rapidly heating a thin column of air to about three times the surface temperature of the Sun. The resulting shock wave starts supersonically and decays into the loud sound known as thunder. Lightning bolts are common in clouds during rainstorms, and on average 6,000 lightning bolts occur between clouds and the Earth every minute. Pictured above, an active lightning storm was recorded over Athens, Greece earlier this month.

links for 2010-07-20

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links for 2010-07-18

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links for 2010-07-17

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links for 2010-07-16

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  • You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud. To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.
  • No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains: Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bailout should be free, small and risk-bearing. We got ourselves into the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France, in the 1980s, the Socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
  • The components and functions of the SCL are:- * Tai Wai to Hung Hom (11km long) : Extension of Ma On Shan Line from Tai Wai to Hung Hom, via South East Kowloon and then connect to Kowloon Southern Link and West Rail Line. This railway line will significantly increase the Shatin-Kowloon capacity and provide railway service to the new developments in South East Kowloon. * Fourth Rail Harbour Crossing (6km long) : Extension of the East Rail Line across the harbour to Hong Kong Island. This railway line will increase the cross-harbour rail capacity and enhance the connectivity between the new territories and Hong Kong Island.
  • Muppets Studio MuppetsStudio's Channel Subscribe
  • A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body's surface into space. Many variants have been suggested, all of which involve travelling along a fixed structure instead of using rocket powered space launch. The concept most often refers to a structure that reaches from the surface of the Earth on or near the Equator to geostationary orbit (GSO) and a counter-mass beyond.

links for 2010-07-15

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  • The statistic that stands out most for me, however, is the prediction that 120,000 people will emigrate: 70,000 in the year ending April 2010 and 50,000 in the year ending April 2011. This will take us back to the kinds of numbers emigrating at the end of 1980s. Such emigration wi’ll provide a little bit of a safety valve on welfare payments, but the country will also lose a cohort of relatively young workers, many of them well skilled.

links for 2010-07-07

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  • Ex-IMF economists predicts gloom for China property Reuters in Beijing 12:28pm, Jul 06, 2010 The mainland’s property market is beginning a collapse that will hit the banking system, Harvard University economics Kenneth Rogoff told Bloomberg Television. Property transactions have dropped and prices are stagnating in the wake of steps in recent months by the central government to cool the market. Xu Shaoshi, minister of land and resources, said at the weekend that he expected prices to start falling within a few months. “You’re starting to see that collapse in property and it’s going to hit the banking system,” Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told the agency. Not everyone agrees. Because home owners must make a downpayment of at least 20 per cent and many pay entirely in cash, there is relatively little leverage in the mainland’s property market. ...
  • Communism and the financial crisis, cartoon edition

links for 2010-07-04

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links for 2010-07-03

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links for 2010-06-30

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  • Civilizations which become obsessed by sustaining unsustainable debt-loads have forgotten the basic nature of money. Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring abstract value. Unhealthy societies often become mesmerized by money and treat it as if it were something concrete. The effect is to destroy the currency’s practical value.
    (tags: money finance)
  • The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness.[11] We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people.

links for 2010-06-29

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links for 2010-06-28

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  • High-tech meets low tech and the coolest accessory for your phone was born. iPlunge is the perfect solution for your video emergencies — just squish it against the back of your iPod®, iPhone®, or any device with a smooth hard surface, sit back, and smile.
  • As Gary Lineker once said: “Football is a simple game, 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end the Germans win.”
  • “An abject performance,” said Gary Lineker. “You cannot believe how bad England were,” said Alan Hansen (who’d told us pre-match that the Germans “are an average side and are eminently beatable”). “I don’t know where to start . . . they were hopeless from start to finish,” said Alan Shearer. “Defensively, it was the worst team performance I’ve ever seen,” said Lee Dixon. “Shambolic, it really was,” said Hansen. “Quite frankly it was awful,” agreed Dixon. “They could have lost by five or six,” said Hansen. Dixon disagreed. “They could have lost seven, eight, quite easily,” he sighed.
  • WORLD CUP 2010: ROUND OF 16: GERMANY 4 ENGLAND 1: THE BIG pieces of hardware lining the roads in Bloemfontein to promote the local military museum set just the tone the English fans like to adopt for clashes with their old enemy. If they viewed the Free State Stadium as a battleground yesterday, though, few of those who had travelled so far to support Fabio Capello’s side can have avoided the conclusion that his side were completely routed over the course of their latest 90 minutes engagement with the Germans.

links for 2010-06-26

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  • There's no need to queue overnight for the latest iPhone - if you can afford the HK$14,800 price tag on parallel-import 32GB iPhone 4s that went on sale in Mong Kok yesterday. That's a month before the local launch, and the price (for an unlocked phone from Britain) is more than twice that of iPhone 3GS released last year. Two days after the iPhone 4 went on sale in the United States, France, Germany and Britain, Hongkongers were able to get their hands on the gadget yesterday at Digital Concept Mobile Pro-shop at Sin Tat Plaza. The iPhone 4 price, at US$1,902, is more than six times the US$299 price of locked versions offered by one telecoms service provider in the US - and that's with a two-year contract.

links for 2010-06-25

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links for 2010-06-23

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  • The ActiveGS plugin is required to safely run apple II/IIGS software within your browser Latest version is 3.0.246 Installation Procedure for Firefox 3.6 (Mac) If the automatic installation process from Firefox did not work, click HERE to manually download the plugin. Once downloaded, press on the [Install Now] button that will be enabled (after 3seconds !)in the next window to complete the installation process. Please check http://activegs.freetoolsassociation.com if you need further assistance
    (tags: apple games)

links for 2010-06-02

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  • Steve: I'll tell you. Actually. It started on a tablet first. 7:00PM Steve: I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on. I asked our people about it. And six months later they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He then got inertial scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, 'my god, we can build a phone with this' and we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the phone.
  • May 13th: A small number of interconnected businesspeople operated at the apex of Irish business during the boom years 2005-2007. In a major new piece of research, Mapping the Golden Circle (digital version available here), equality think-tank TASC has revealed the extent of the network across 40 of Ireland’s top private companies and state-owned bodies in that period
  • I’m going to disagree. I think it’s that he’d rather be wrong repeatedly in the short term than admit that his entire technology industry world view is wrong. His big picture perspective has remained very consistent since the ’90s: Microsoft is the undisputed king of the industry, and Apple makes some nice but trivial niche products.
  • When do people learn languages? My concern here is to look at what linguistics can tell us about why and when people learn a language. (Summary: It's not easy, so they'll try not to.) I'll also cover the subsidiary questions that usually interest folks more: How can I learn a language? and, How can I make other people learn this language?
  • Cold weather warning issued by observatory Regina Leung 5:39pm, Jun 01, 2010 Email to friend Print a copy Bookmark and Share The Hong Kong Observatory issued a cold weather warning at 4.20pm on Wednesday and warned that temperatures would drop further, said a spokesman. “A winter monsoon associated with a cold front is affecting the coastal areas of Guangdong and the temperatures in those areas have decreased by four-to-six degrees Celsius compared to yesterday. “The observatory forecasts that when the monsoon passes over Hong Kong temperatures will drop further. In urban areas it will be around 13 degree Celsius tonight and a couple of degrees lower in the New Territories,” senior scientific officer Ginn Wing-lui said. The observatory estimates the temperature will drop further on Thursday and Friday. “The temperature on Thursday will be around 12 degrees Celsius and on Friday may even drop to 11 degrees,” he said.

links for 2010-06-01

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  • In a pre-emptive blast before the banks launch their own lobbying effort on June 10, Stephen Cecchetti, chief economic adviser to the Bank for International Settlements, said the banks’ “doomsday scenarios” were based on their assuming “the maximum impact of the maximum change with the minimum behavioural change”. EDITOR’S CHOICE Lex: European bank levy - May-26 G20 urged to make investors pay for failures - May-24 US Senate approves financial reform bill - May-21 Opinion: Senate bill merits two cheers - May-23 “They are assuming they’re not adjusting their business at all to the regulatory reforms and that the result for the economy will be the worst possible,” said Mr Cecchetti.

links for 2010-05-30

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  • "That Spartan management style was successful in past decades and was widely adopted by early Hong Kong and Taiwanese manufacturers who operate factories in Guangdong," he said. "But it has gradually come to be regarded as an outdated and unsustainable management style for dealing with young people born after the 1980s."
    (tags: china apple)

links for 2010-05-28

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  • Although careful not to advise his Irish audience not to use SEO consultants – a valuable source of advertising dollars for Google – Cutts was clear he would prefer if webmasters felt they could get to grips with the issues themselves. “A lot of SEO is simply common sense. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself how would a regular user see this.” The SEO business is also one that has attracted more than its fair share of shysters and snake oil salesmen. Sites abound on the web selling software and services that guarantee to get a site into Google’s top 10 listings for their favoured search term for as little as €100. In reality they are little more than a scam to get the credit card details of the unsuspecting.
    (tags: seo google)

links for 2010-05-25

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links for 2010-05-24

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  • This timeline goes over all the major events and plot points of the saga, from before Half-Life 1 to the end of Half-Life 2. The HL1 manual indicates that the Black Mesa incident occurred on May 5, 200-, implying by the "-" that the incident could take place during any year during the decade. For simplicity's sake, I assumed it happened in the year 2000 and went from there.

links for 2010-05-23

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  • Basically, US postwar economic history falls into two parts: an era of high taxes on the rich and extensive regulation, during which living standards experienced extraordinary growth; and an era of low taxes on the rich and deregulation, during which living standards for most Americans rose fitfully at best.
    (tags: economics usa)
  • Once again, it's NOT the battery at fault. The first thing to try before getting an iPod replacement battery is re-calibrating the meter. This will not magically produce a meter so accurate that you can tell at a glance the difference between two hours left and three hours left -- the system just isn't designed for that. But it may fix the early shutdown problem. To re-calibrate, run the iPod until it shuts down. Recharge fully, using the AC power (mains) adapter, not a USB or Firewire port (see below). Do not recharge until the iPod shuts down due to low battery again. This does not mean you have to leave it running for hours; use it normally, but hold off on any "top-off" small recharges.

links for 2010-05-20

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  • let the dough rise overnight. It’s not a new idea. Anthony Mangieri redefined New York’s artisanal scene when he opened Una Pizza Napoletana in 2004 (now living in San Francisco, he will reopen his pizzeria there later this summer). He learned to let dough rise for 24 hours in Naples. Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco and Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix all have overnight rises; at Lucali’s in Brooklyn, the dough rises for about 36 hours; and at Saraghina, also in Brooklyn, it goes for as long as 72 hours.

links for 2010-05-19

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  • When the Central Bank discovered that the Ansbacher Bank was breaking the law by running a major tax evasion scam for the benefit of a small group of individuals (which included Charles Haughey, a longtime Irish prime minister noted both for his personal vindictiveness and his lavish lifestyle), it declined to discipline the bank for abusing its license, or indeed to inform the taxation authorities. This minimalist approach to oversight was later to wreak havoc, as the bank turned a deliberate blind eye to the problematic accounting practices of well-connected banks.

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  • The point of terrorism is not to "destroy." It is to terrify. And for eight and a half years now, the dominant federal government response to terrorist threats and attacks has been to magnify their harm by increasing a mood of fear and intimidation. That is the real case against the ludicrous "orange threat level" announcements we hear every three minutes at the airport. It's not just that they're pointless, uninformative, and insulting to our collective intelligence; it's that their larger effect is to make people feel frightened rather than brave.

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  • "Credit-rating agencies allowed Wall Street to impact their analysis, their independence and their reputation for reliability," Senator Carl Levin, who leads the investigative panel, said on Thursday. "They did it for the big fees that they got." E-mails released by the committee show Moody's and S&P deferring to investment banks that were paying them to assign ratings to securities composed of pooled mortgages.

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  • If you check that site out, you will see that it is a total spam site. The site is completely loaded with ads, mostly Google Adsense. If you read the supposed solutions to the problems on there, you will see that for the most part these so called expert answers are super low quality pieces of crap. In fact, it appears that the overall business model for this site is to flood the internet with highly optimized posts that provide zero value to the end user so that visitors just click on an ad to leave the page.
  • Looking to add even more retro flavor to your Olumpus E-P1? Then you might want to consider taking after Flickr user Lok Cheung, who was inspired by the Rolleiflex TLR to create this Rollei EVF (of sorts) for the Micro Four Thirds camera.
    (tags: photography)

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  • Hong Kong’s leading authority on air quality said on Thursday he was leaving the city to avoid its polluted air and keep his respiratory problems under control. Anthony Hedley, best known for creating the Hedley Environmental Index, which tracks the public health and economic costs of Hong Kong air pollution in real time, is relocating to the Isle of Man.
  • First, I’m fascinated by their apparently cavalier attitude regarding the legal implications of their actions. I’m not offended by their decision to obtain this unit and publish everything they were able to ascertain regarding it. It simply boggles my mind the stakes they have effectively wagered that Apple will not pursue this legally. Second, publishing the name, photographs, and personal information of the Apple engineer who lost the phone is irrelevant to the story. It was the dick move to end all dick moves.
    (tags: apple news)
  • Piling on more rules and statutes will not produce something different than it has in the past. Reliance on affirmative principles of truth-telling in accounting statements and a duty of care would be preferable. Deregulation is not some kind of libertarian mantra but an absolute necessity if we are to exit crony capitalism.

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  • "3. Let every person have from birth to grave, their own personal data stick, on which goes their PPSI number, current photo, all medical details, tests, scans, prescriptions, donor status etc. and let every health-related outlet have a reader/writer for same." NICHOLAS GRUBB, [DAVE: tying long term records to a single storage medium is not very clever. How can you guarantee that a 2010 USB data stick can be readable in 2080?]
    (tags: health ireland)

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  • The expatriate mother who sent out the e-mail that went around Hong Kong falsely claiming two Chinese women tried to abduct a boy in Ocean Park admitted yesterday she got her facts wrong after picking up the story in a bar on Saturday night.
  • If you own a GSM phone then there are several codes that can be entered to tell the network how to handle incoming calls and more. These codes are not really considered secrets, but they are poorly documented by service providers.
    (tags: gsm phone)

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  • Americans are historically a tough lot. But the policies and rhetoric of the Bush-Cheney years, which set the tone for the current GOP attacks, are infantilizing: be very afraid, we're told, and let the government take care of you. The tough-guy bluster has led to a permanent state of anxiety—and a slew of counterproductive policies, from harsh visa restrictions to waterboarding. Our politicians rail about apocalyptic threats while TSA officers pat down toddlers at the airport. The irony is that many potentially lethal terror attacks—from United Flight 93 to Richard Reid to the underwear bomber—have been foiled by regular citizens. The aim of terrorists is to make people feel powerless and afraid. Un-fortunately, not every plot will be foiled. But if that's the standard we and our leaders set for ourselves, we are doomed to perpetuate dumb policies that flow from irrational fears. Just what the terrorists want.
  • In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.

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  • 4000 AD is a unique game of strategy set two thousand years in the future, when men have spread to the planets of other stars hundreds of light-years from the earth. An interstellar conflict between worlds is its subject. The concept of star travel by hyper-space is the basis of its unique playing character. 4000 AD is pure strategy of movement, with no chance element. Two to four players may play independently or in alliance with others.
    (tags: games scifi)
  • 4000 AD is a science fiction game set 2000 years into the future. Players maneuver fleets of ships in an attempt to conquer the known galaxy.
    (tags: games scifi)

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  • <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Kg8HFQ1xP4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Kg8HFQ1xP4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
    (tags: movies humour)

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  • Madam, – As an Irish citizen who travels extensively in the course of my work, I am very concerned about the fraudulent use of Irish passports. I have long experience of the ready welcome that an Irish passport receives in many corners of the world. This welcome is now being threatened by the use of fraudulent Irish passports by those suspected of murdering Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. There is a strong prima facie case against Israel: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was seen as an enemy by Israel; Israel has engaged in foreign assassinations before; Israel has used forged third-country passports in other such operations; and no forged passports from Israel’s closest ally (the United States) were used. Clearly, the perpetrators think that they can treat Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia with contempt.

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  • How is it even possible that a Minister who slandered a political opponent and then swore a false statement in an affidavit before the High Court that he had not done so, could still remain in office? Because, in post-Ahern Irish politics, anything goes. No wonder the public have grown increasingly sick and tired of politics and politicians. It is apparent to me that, with the playing out of the O’Dea affair, we have arrived at a point that the 20th-century American writer Jean Toomer described most aptly. He said that acceptance of prevailing standards often means that we have no standards of our own. The prevailing standards the Government is operating off in Irish politics are those of Bertie Ahern. The result is that the current Fianna Fáil party has no standards. They do have one guiding principle remaining: blind loyalty to party colleague, come what may.

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  • Ubisoft's New PC DRM Really Requires Net Access, Ends Game If Disconnected by Chris Faylor Feb 17, 2010 3:20pm CST Ubisoft wasn't kidding when it said that its new digital rights management technique mandates "an active Internet connection to play the game, for all game modes." Advance copies of the first two games to embrace the new solution--Assassin's Creed II PC and The Settlers 7 PC--recently arrived at PC Gamer, leading to the discovery that the games automatically shut down if temporarily disconnected from the Internet. In the case of Assassin's Creed II PC, a single-player game, players will lose any progress since the last checkpoint in the event that they briefly lose their connection to Ubisoft's master servers, be it because of client-side or server-side issues.

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  • To those familiar with the science and the IPCC’s work, the current media discussion is in large part simply absurd and surreal. Journalists who have never even peeked into the IPCC report are now outraged that one wrong number appears on page 493 of Vol.2. We’ve met TV teams coming to film a report on the IPCC reports’ errors, who were astonished when they held one of the heavy volumes in hand, having never even seen it. They told us frankly that they had no way to make their own judgment; they could only report what they were being told about it. And there are well-organized lobby forces with proper PR skills that make sure these journalists are being told the “right” story. That explains why some media stories about what is supposedly said in the IPCC reports can easily be falsified simply by opening the report and reading. Unfortunately, as a broad-based volunteer effort with only minimal organizational structure the IPCC is not in a good position to rapidly counter misinformation.

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  • 1989 should have been the best year ever for Rock Sugar, the big haired heavy metal band that had just broken the top 41 on the rock radio charts with their solid brass debut album “Bang You Like A Drum”. But instead of headlining concerts, Rock Sugar made the headlines when they were presumed lost forever after playing an extremely ill advised gig celebrating the bat mitzvah of 13-year-old Lisa Rosenberg.
  • E-mail, it turns out, can hold many secrets, from the names of personal physicians and illicit lovers to the identities of whistle-blowers and antigovernment activists. And Google, so recently a hero to many people for threatening to leave China after hacking attempts against the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, now finds itself being pilloried as a clumsy violator of privacy. As Evgeny Morozov wrote in a blog post for Foreign Policy, “If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I would immediately dispatch my Internet geek squads to check on Google Buzz accounts for political activists and see if they have any connections that were previously unknown to the government."
  • The problem is how. Google has taken a couple of services that had basically clear privacy expectations — specifically, Gmail (private) and Google Profiles (public) — and combined them in a way that discloses previously private information that many people consider confidential.

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  • Today the Square team is focused on bringing immediacy, transparency, and approachability to the world of payments: an inherently social interaction each of us participates in daily. We’re starting with a limited beta and rolling out to everyone in early 2010.

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  • This bears out the pervasive "conservative" American ethos of "I've got mine, so screw you," so the problem is much bigger than health care reform. The idea that anyone could fall victim to negative circumstance or make a bad decision or just find themselves on the losing side of something is attributed to their own bad character --- or, perversely, to the government which has taken from you, the deserving citizen, and given it to someone else, thus unfairly placing you at a disadvantage. It's old style Calvinism mixed with adolescent Randism and it's a very serious problem for people who believe that social stability and economic justice are important.

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  • Many fung shui masters make a living out of being able to divine the future. Doubtless, then, they foresaw the taxmen coming their way. Thanks to the epic probate battle over the estate of the late billionaire Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum, the Inland Revenue Department has now clarified that fees and red packets given to fung shui consultants count as income and can be taxed. If some public good came out of what was essentially a private dispute, it is that the public coffers have found a new source of revenue.
    (tags: hongkong)

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  • Hey guys, we know you like to have your fun, voice your opinions, and argue over your favorite gear, but over the past few days the tone in comments has really gotten out of hand. What is normally a charged -- but fun -- environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations... and that's just not acceptable. Some of you out there in the world of anonymous grandstanding have gotten the impression that you run the place, but that's simply not the case.

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  • Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

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  • As a driver entering the new streets, you are immediately aware that this is somewhere different, somewhere special. It feels quite unlike a normal urban road. You start to pay extra attention, and to become more alert to other people and to your surroundings. The narrower apparent width of the carriageways, the absence of road markings and signals, the lighting, low kerbs and distinctive paving all help to encourage low speeds, whether you are familiar with the space or a newcomer. Every aspect of the scheme contributes to establishing a naturally low-speed, free-flowing environment.
    (tags: transport tr)
  • So, labour costs (the largest input), payroll taxes, gas, water charges, transport and fuel (including labour-related transport costs), couriers and accountants – all cheaper here than in Maastricht. So what’s going on? Why is the cost of running retail operations more expensive here than in Maastricht? Rent: rents are the killer. For city centre locations Dublin rents are €2,600 more expensive per square metre; for high street locations (Grafton Street compared to Grote Straat) the differential is a staggering €8,000 per square metre. Even in Outer City Shopping Centres (such as Dundrum), rents are nearly €2,700 dearer here per square metre than the Maastrich equivalent. That’s a lot money flowing out of consumers’, workers’ and owners’ pockets into commercial landlords’.

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  • So, if you’re American, a large chunk of the reason you make a lot of money (relative to the rest of the world) is that you are American. The main cause of your relative wealth is not that you work hard, or that you’re innately smarter than members of other nations (though you may be since you weren’t starved as a child). It’s because you had opportunities given to you that most people will never had, and those opportunities existed due to the pure accident of your birth or because you or your family chose to come to the US. The same is true of most first world nations.

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  • By (obliquely) accusing the Chinese government of involvement in corporate espionage and challenging the government to shut the company down for providing uncensored search, “Google has taken the China corporate communications playbook, wrapped it in oily rags, doused it in gasoline and dropped a lit match on it.” (Those evocative words are from top Chinablogger Imagethief.) This isn’t a temporary strategic retreat – this is a retreat where you detonate the bridges behind you.
  • Because also at the root of this problem are the American businessmen who dismantled their manufacturing and production, discarded their quality control, let go of their supply chains and fired their American workers and steadily squeezed the wages of everyone left over -- all so they could have their consumables, drugs, toys, dry goods, tools -- you name it, made in China. And every damn one of them, and everyone in regulatory affairs in the US government, knew going in they were going to have a big problem in this area. And they all made conscious decisions to abandon their scruples, decency and moral high ground to the pure pursuit of profit at the expense of everything else.
  • Terrorism simply isn't a visible factor in your chances of dying while flying, or indeed while doing anything else: it is insignificant, a problem that has been almost totally eliminated for Western citizens since its not-very-serious heyday in the 1970s and 80s, and you shouldn't worry about it. It would make absolutely no noticeable difference to your or my chances of violent death/injury if terrorism was eradicated overnight.
  • The British economist David Blanchflower warned that Ireland could be plunged into a 1930s-style depression if the public purse is cut: "Balancing the budget is not what you do in a recession. My advice is to wait until you're out." His warning was widely reported in the Irish press but totally ignored by government.
  • Full episodes now available in HD on the dailyshow website!

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  • There's also the popular notion that Apple has to do something entirely new or totally amazing in order for the tablet to succeed. After all, tablets have been tried before, with dismal results. It seems absurd to some people that Apple can succeed simply by using existing technologies and software techniques in the right combination. And yet that's exactly what Apple has done with all of its most recent hit products—and what I predict Apple will do with the tablet.
  • In particular, the newspaper cited "conversations with several former Apple engineers" who've reportedly had a key role in the ongoing development of Apple's much-anticipated tablet device who suggest the company may require that users adapt to a "somewhat complex new vocabulary of finger gestures to control it, making use of technology it acquired in the 2007 purchase of a company called FingerWorks." “The tablet should offer any number of unique multitouch experiences — for example, three fingers down and rotate could mean ‘open an application,’ ” one former Apple engineer reportedly told the paper. A second added that the Cupertino-based company has “spent the past couple of years working on a multitouch version of iWork."

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  • "FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern will not pay tax on the estimated €400,000 earned from his autobiography thanks to the artists’ exemption introduced by his former Fianna Fáil colleague and political mentor, the late Charles Haughey." *rolls-eyes*

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  • For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

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  • The regulation states internet service providers are no longer allowed to host individually owned websites, and that only businesses with operating licences or government-authorised organisations may now have websites. The China Internet Network Information Centre, which supervises domain name registration on the mainland, said the measure stemmed from concern over widespread pornographic content on personal websites. The draconian regulation requires a domain name applicant to submit, among other things, a photocopy of its business or organisation licence. The purpose of requiring the licence is to guarantee the background information of the applicant is "real, accurate and complete".
  • Central to O’Toole’s analysis is the notion that Ireland is not yet democratically mature, with a weak civic morality and underdeveloped system of political governance, and an electoral system that encourages and condones local clientelism and corruption. He suggests that Ireland failed to create a proper democratic republic, to go through a process of political and social reform, the establishment a strong welfare system and collective interest, and to create a state independent of Church and local interest, as in other post World War Two, European countries. Instead Ireland persisted with two, essentially ideologically barren, middle right parties that were for all intents and purposes identical and which used a form of machine politics that were highly clientalist, reactionary and short-termist.

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  • Water main bursts in Wanchai Staff reporter 1:41pm, May 22, 2009 Email to friend | Print a copy All lanes at Harbour Road, Central, near Fleming Road, were closed to traffic after a water main there burst, a spokesman for the Transport Department said on Friday. "About 4.30am, the water main burst," said the spokesman, adding that the main was about 450 millimetres in diameter. He said workers from the Water Supplies Department were still repairing it. "As they have been affected by the main bursting, all premises at Wan Chai and Happy Valley have had their sea water supplies suspended," he added. The spokesman said motorists going from Causeway Bay to Admiralty should use Tonnochy Road and Convention Avenue. "Those who drive from Admiralty to Causeway Bay should use Tim Mei Avenue and Lung Wui Road," he advised. (dave: disagreement between the headline and the first line of the story? Come on SCMP, pay some attention to detail.)
    (tags: scmp hongkong)

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  • “What you get from Harvard Business School,” says Radio 4's In Business presenter Peter Day, “is a wonderful network of people who were there with you and a set of tools that you can then use and bamboozle people with for the rest of your life. It is a habit of thought - conventional responses to conventional situations. Harvard teaches very much on a case-study basis, so it is always telling people how to respond to things that happened in the past. No wonder that when something like the credit crunch comes along, huge numbers of highly skilled people in compartmentalised worlds are unable to respond to it.”
  • But the critics say there's an even deeper problem at the heart of the MBA degree. The MBA is all about putting careers on a fast-track to the top, whereas in the glory days of American industry there were no fast-tracks. MBAs, in other words are fundamentally anti-meritocratic.

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  • Since water meters will not be read at intervals of exactly 121.64 days, the volume covered by each tier is adjusted on a pro-rata basis according to the actual number of days in the period between two meter readings. As such, a consumer who uses the same amount of water as another one but over a longer period of time will receive a lower water bill. dave: If the volume of water consumed is adjusted to match the observation period, why does the adjusted total match the observed total? WSD appear to be overcharging users who use more than 62 Cubic Metresof water per quarter.

Resolved: the pro-rata adjusted part is the tiered sections up to 62 Cu.M per 121.64 days. You pay full whack on the remainder up to your actual usage.

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  • According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, between 310,000 and 580,000 of us will commit suicide by cigarette this year. Another 260,000 to 470,000 will go in the ground due to poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. ... Deaths of Americans due to terrorist activities, according to the US State Department, have averaged less than 15 per year since 2002. And all of those occurred abroad. The majority were in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

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  • This site would be quite interesting if it wasn't completely contained in a flash animation, so you have to sit through the tedious opening animation every single time. Ironically, putting the whole thing in a flash file means that it can't be viewed on many devices, indexed by Google, or archived by the Internet Archive (archive.org), both of which defeat entire purpose of the site. Well done, incompetent web site designers and administrators!

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  • The lesson should be clear. Commercial banks are just too important to the economy to be allowed to participate in the more dangerous business areas of modern finance. Trusting in the good sense of bankers to avoid excessive risk doesn't work. In a deregulated environment, caution is penalised and the conservative are soon pushed out.
  • All graphs on this page are ©Dave O'Brien 2003-2009, and licensed under the Creative Commons as Creative Commons License Sars Graphs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Hong Kong License. (I should have done it years ago, but I didn't even think of it until listening to <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2009/03/25/blogs-turbocharged">this podcast by Merlin Mann and John Gruber</a>.)

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  • Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of cultural capital—a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.
  • Based largely on my travels in China but also on events like the linked article, I'm finally beginning to think we're on the tipping point for Electric Vehicles. In five years time, I'd like to see most new cars be Electric. That requires a lot of local infrastructure and commitment to change, which HK government will not do unless China does it first. We're relying on the completely corrupt cadres for any progress. HK Government are truly a bunch of spineless weasels.

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  • Bureau turns back on creationism concerns Liz Heron Feb 21, 2009 Guidance for biology teachers will not be reviewed to address concerns that it encourages creationism before the new secondary diploma is launched, the Education Bureau has indicated. Four scientists, including the University of Hong Kong's dean of science Sun Kwok and science faculty board chairman David Dudgeon, have called for a reference to "alternative explanations" to Darwin's theory of evolution to be removed from the biology curriculum guidance. The guide drawn up for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education states: "In section II, genetics and evolution, students are expected to understand that evolution is a scientific theory supported with evidence and are encouraged to explore other explanations for evolution and the origins of life in addition to Darwin's theory."
  • If man evolved from apes, why do we still have apes? It was interesting reading about the continuing debate between creationists and evolutionists, which poses some interesting questions and observations. As far as creation theory is concerned, it would appear self-evident that it happened. Everything is here in perfect order and balance. Also, according to science, it has been so for billions of years. However, science has failed to adequately explain how it arrives at that figure. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that the one (and I might add the only one) who claims responsibility for this creation has come and spoken about it. He called himself God. Science itself has not created anything without using what God put here in the first place as a base. Medical science has not been able to cure sickness or disease, heal crippled limbs, make the blind see or the deaf hear without using medicines, drugs or operations. STEVEN STRINGER, Queensland, Australia

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  • This room — the “maximum kitchen,” he calls it — and the “video game room” he was sitting in minutes before are just 2 of at least 24 different layouts that Mr. Chang, an architect, can impose on his 344-square-foot apartment, which he renovated last year. What appears to be an open-plan studio actually contains many rooms, because of sliding wall units, fold-down tables and chairs, and the habitual kinesis of a resident in a small space.

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  • Movie review: Australia (Baz Luhrmann) Australia has always been known for its fine food and wine and now you can add cheese to the list. As camp as Priscilla Queen of The Desert, broader than Steve Irwin bellowing "crikey", and generally making outback machismo as gay as Crocodile Dundee's vest-with-no-shirt look, this 166-minute sprawling epic is so bad it's actually good. With gooey emotions and calorie-rich visuals, Baz Luhrmann's busy homage is pure fromage. In fact, it's a magnificent, continent-sized disaster.

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  • It's not in your rational self-interest to allow other people to go hungry or to lack necessities like health care just because you're unwilling to contribute your fair share to the social contract you were born into. The world is not a better place if people are homeless or trapped into poverty because the only skill you recognize is the ability to separate people from their wallets.

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  • So on the nose is the traditional way of celebrating Halloween that a group called Media Evangelism has organised a march from Mong Kok to Tsim Sha Tsui today. Spokeswoman Vickie Chan said it was not right for Christians to celebrate Halloween by donning horror masks and demon horns and trying to scare each other as though it was a big joke. "Celebrating in this way means you are having a conversation with the Devil," she said. -- Why is no one pointing out that this is not mainstream Christianity? These evangelical organisations are representing an extreme and fundamentalist point of view. If Muslims were making these kinds of comments, the editorial view would be far more critical.

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