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Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 Release Notes Rewritten in Plain Eng
Ubuntu claims to be a “Linux for Human Beings,” and for the most part they actually do a good job of it. One place they fail miserably is in their release notes - they’re just too damn complicated for anyone who doesn’t know what all the different component names stand for. I decided to rewrite the release notes in simple language.
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FOXNews.com - Woman Goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News
Incredibly Accurate Sniper Shot Disarms a Suicidal Man
The Nihilistic Beauty of Weapons Arranged in Patterns
Angry Video Game Nerd: Double Vision Pt. 1
in a follow up to the old dragons having sex with cars
YouTube - Woman Fakes Being Hurt In Courtroom
PUMPACTION Cam at The Internet Is Terrible
Mysterious Image of a Boob Appears at 2 O'Clock Everyday
From the Photographer: "I've lived here for over 30 years, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I was initiated into one of the secret wonders of San Francisco, the so-called "two o'clock titty" of St. Mary's Cathedral, which appears at 2 pm, and is a staple of academic life for Catholic schoolboys."
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World Beard Championships
Blizzard suing over World of Warcraft Glider Bot
After 100,000 copies of the Glider Bot have been sold, Blizzard goes after the creator in court to shut down players using the bot to avoid actually playing a game. After all, why would anybody want to sit and play a game they purchased (and pay for each month)?
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please remember, the companion cube will not threaten to stab you"
The Great Angel Oak [Pic]
United We Stand, Divided We Fall? (Cool Party Trick!)
Use four chairs, lean back, and remove the chairs. The structure will hold - it's really cool!
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6 Signs You're NOT Irish On St. Patrick's Day - OMG Lists.com - When we list, the world listens- The Ultimate Pop Culture List Site!
Angry Video Game Nerd videos
Superman Loves Children - Pictures - Geekstir - News, videos & pictures from the World of Geek.
Blogger: The Brown Haze - Publish Status
Warning: Portals
Only in Russia…
Only in Russia…
I seem to recall one of these pics being blamed on Africa a while back, oh well.Labels: links
ABC News: The Burqa Gets a Makeover
Google Reader
RSS has been around for quite some time. I have looked at it, but not really found a use for it in the past. In the last few months I have found myself relying on it more and more. Part of this is the web 2.0 revolution which means that everyone and their dog (not my dogs, I might add) has a blog. In a combination of blogs, news sights, tech sights and some amusing stuff that is regularly updated, I had between 15 and 20 RSS subscriptions. Using the firefox RSS system it was easy to see if a site had been updated and if so, if the update looked interesting.
Even better was getting RSS feeds going to my phone. I just hit update and all of my feeds are refreshed with loads of good, interesting stuff to kill five minutes on the bus or what have you.
I have just started looking at Google Reader, which I think have now made RSS vital. Google Reading is a web based RSS reader. So, you have all of your RSS feeds coming in to this one page, you can, at a glance, check all of your sites very easily. If you think an article is interesting you can hit the “share” button which will publish these posts on to a publicly accessible page that others can read. If they like, they can subscribe to your links page with their RSS reader. Its great stuff.
Also, you can have your shared links appear on a web page, just like the new “quick links” box that you can see on the right hand side of this page.Labels: site news
Mirror Blog I just installed a Facebook application which should copy my posts to my blog on to my Facebook profile. This should be interesting (or not, whatever) Labels: site news
Would you call being deaf a disability?
This morning I listened to a very interesting debate on the Today Program with a deaf guy (via a translator) regarding a bill being put though parliament that embryos which shows genes that indicate they will be deaf should be screened out. This has been met with anger by a large part of the deaf community. There are many in the deaf community who want to be able to choose to have a deaf child.
From what I can gather this is because they do not see deafness as a disability, but as being some sort of ethnic minority. The guy being interviews said that he and his wife already had one deaf child and they wanted another one. He stated that he was no more disabled then a black person or someone who was gay, its not about disability, its about prejudice. He went on to say to the interviewer that he (the deaf guy) felt sorry for the interview because he was not able to enjoy deaf culture. To which the interviewer pointed out that a) while he could not enjoy deaf culture, he could enjoy Mozart or pop music or that he could listen to Shakespeare and b) he could always learn to sign if he wanted to, a deaf person could not learn to hear.
I think its fantastic that the deaf community have taken, what I think is a pretty nasty disability (I would not like to be deaf) and turned it in to a thriving subculture which they can feel proud to be part of. Unfortunately, I think they are pretty deluded about how desirable that may be. It all sounds pretty cliquey and very separate from mainstream society. A bit like situations with other ethic ghettos, this could breed misunderstanding and resentment (although, not from the hearing community I think).
One of the points this guy was making that really stuck with me that he was offended that deafness was considered a disability and because this was being screened out that deaf people where considered as less then equal to the hearing community. Well, if deafness is not a disability, what is? What if you child was to be born paralyzed, or severally mentally disabled, I wonder if this is something that he would make a positive decision to choose.
In reality, I think this is just selfishness. This guy has his cosy little deaf world that he does not want being upset by a hearing child. But what about when this child grows up and has to live the rest of life in silence, a member of this wonderful deaf community, but separated from the rest of the world by, what they see as, a disability. And what about the day when you sit your son down and say “you know what, I had a choice about weather I should have a deaf son or not, and I chose to go with a deaf one”. You had better hope that you brain washed them properly, because there is a chance they may never talk to you again.
Here are some relevant links
This is a story in the Guardian
This is a thread on a BBC message board where this issue is being discussed.
"This is Unix, I know this"
I was juts treated to a few moments of Jurassic park while channel flicking. And it was just at the bit where the 12 year old girl sees a very bespoke and stupid file 3D file management system (incidentally called FSN, which is more like a demo for old CAD systems) and utters the now famous phrase " It's a UNIX system! I know this!" and then proceeds to, very slowly, navigate some files with a mouse, and then click on one, which saves the day.
My experience of Unix (or Linux actually, but whose counting) was not quite as positive as that what with the real wold 90 degree learning curve and all.
anyhoo, that is not the real point of this post. What I did notice was that this 12 year old UNIX expert (or moving a pointer round a 3D map, same thing basically) holds the mouse in a way that I have not seen outside of a residential home home for spastics.
and I had to find a) a video of this to take a screen grab of and crop to post here and b) find and install an SFTP client on this computer to make this post c) its bed time.
I am officially sad.
The Experiment 112
I recently started looking at a new and very original take on the adventure game. In the game you are on a boat somewhere in the tropics on which some sort of experiments have been taking place. The only interaction you have with the ship is via its security systems, i.e. cameras, door locks and other devices which are wired in to the control system you find yourself at. As far as you know there is only one other person on this boat, you can communicate with her by nodding and shaking the cameras that you control to answer yes and no to questions, or by turning on lights and other devices to draw her attention to specific areas.
The clever part about this game is that you play the roll of a person sitting in front of a computer who has no knowledge of what is going on, basically, you play yourself. This works quite cleverly to break down the fourth wall and provides a lot of atmosphere.
I do feel that I have somewhat of an unfair advantage with this game having spent quite a lot of time with security guards over the last few months. I know exactly how to play this game. I brought up the display from a number of different cameras then spent the next 3 hours moaning that I don’t get paid enough. Well, that’s how the professionals do it. It did get a bit boring after a while.
Gamespot page hereLabels: Review, soap box
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