+ 3 - 9 | § ¶War on ants
No, not ents (don't mess with those guys) - ants. Specifically, Argentine ants. Apparently California is one giant supercolony of them, with something like 200 billion (and I only wish I was exaggerating) of them stretched over 600 miles from southern Oregon down to San Diego. It's more recently been debated that it's actually more like 4 or 5 distinct colonies, but that doesn't change the fact that they've infested the entire Bay Area. They are omnivorous and have 8 queens per 1000 ants, making them numerous and persistent. They stick around all year but are most noticable during the summer.
And stopping them? Well, don't bother trying - both chemicals and "natural" solutions are ineffective. They'll move in your apartment when it suits them (driven by either hot weather or substantial rainfall), and only move out again when they feel like it again (they eat most anything but their favorite food comes from aphids and trees). California isn't the only place infested by these things - they come from South America, but stretch from Italy to Portugal in Europe. And they aren't just bothersome pests to humans - they displace native ants which can mess with the ecosystem and starve ant predators such as lizards.
Scientists have found a way to turn them against each other, meaning their unique cooperative boon can potentially be taken away. But to actually implement such a solution on a broad enough scale to make a difference, it seems that it will be necessary for us humans to cooperate and coordinate a bit. So, I have a not-so-modest proposal - a war on ants.
Clearly, these ants are attacking our fundamental way of life. And unlike the "war on terror", this is quite literally a battle in our homes. This challenge cannot be ignored, and if the government were to step in and deploy ant bait stations (spraying doesn't really help with these) then there will be some hope in this fight. If not, then we will just have to get used to our inevitable future.
+ 8 - 8 | § ¶Testing testing 1 2 3
This is just a test - the website should look the same, but I'm changing a few of the behind-the-scenes organizations (e.g. folder/file structure, etc.) to suit my own purposes. Also, if you used to have an account to login and post stuff, you probably don't any more. Sorry about that - if you (yes you, even if you didn't have an account before) are interested in posting on this site, just speak up and we'll work something out.+ 4 - 12 | § ¶Ad-free Sao Paulo
An interesting story:A city stripped of advertising. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing. It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist's dream. But in São Paulo, Brazil, the dream has become a reality. In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city's streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. "It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn't legal," reasoned Kassab, "so we have decided to go all the way." The law was hailed by writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo as "a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash… For once, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost."Not sure what I think of this, to be honest. I tend to be libertarian-free-speech, so even censorship of corporations (which is essentially what this is) rubs me a little wrongly. Still, advertising is admittedly garish and perhaps a perversion of what expression in the first place. I don't think that justifies forbidding it, but the fact that Sao Paulo has done so is interesting nonetheless.
+ 10 - 5 | § ¶Stanford rolls over to the RIAA
Very disappointing (warning, PDF):While file-sharing technology has revolutionized our ability to share information with one other, its illegal use for pirating copyrighted materials is at unacceptable levels at Stanford. On March 30, 2007 Stanford was listed as one of the Motion Picture Association of America’s top 25 worst offenders (http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1969). We have also had a steep increase in the number of piracy complaints filed against us by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). From September 2006 – January 2007, Stanford received nearly as many Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints as we received in the entire 2005-06 academic year. Of these complaints, 90% are directed at undergraduate and graduate students: students who are jeopardizing the Stanford network by using it as platform to steal songs, movies, TV shows, video games, books and software. As of May 2007, the RIAA has identified seven Stanford network connections that have been targeted for its “pre-litigation” notification program (http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/022807.asp). The RIAA has said that it will continue to send out pre-litigation notices each month. Keeping up with the number of file-sharing complaints coming in under the DMCA has required almost three full-time Stanford employees. It is an irresponsible waste of Stanford’s resources—your tuition dollars—to spend so much staff time responding to copyright violations.Yes, of course Stanford is concerned about the cost of tuition, when it can be used to justify some ulterior motive. The announcement goes on to say that students will be fined $100 for their first offense, $500 for their second, and $1000 for their third. This should be self-evident, but an institution the size of Stanford has the power to actually resist the hypocrisy of the RIAA, especially if it banded together with other universities (as a Harvard Law professor urged). But instead, it caves and passes along the injustice to the students, complete with the false use of rhetoric of "stealing." Meanwhile, Stanford continues to cater to its own trust fund (which continues to grow). Let this stand as yet another reason why never to donate to the main trust fund of any university - if you're in the position to donate and have the inclination, give to specific programs instead that you know can benefit and will use the money properly.
+ 6 - 8 | § ¶Spitzer being bad again
This stuff is really disappointing, I honestly pictured Spitzer as a good presidential candidate in 8 or 12 years.Governor Spitzer has proposed to expand NY State's DNA database by collecting samples from every convicted criminal, including those guilty of misdemeanors, like harassment or unauthorized use of a credit card. Spitzer also wants to streamline DNA collection in order for defendants to use it to clear their names.The "we'll make it easier for defendants to use it to clear their name" bit is supposed to make this Orwellian pill easier to swallow, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a powerful organization building a massive database with huge potential for abuse. This sort of proposal failed back when Pataki was governor (the Democratic-led legislature shut it down), but now that both the governor and legislature are Democratic it seems more likely that it will pass. Let this stand as yet another example of why divided government is ideal - the two parties spend all their time fighting each other and leave the rest of us alone. It worked in the 90s, and what's more it gave late-night comedians plenty of material.
+ 6 - 9 | § ¶Mainstream media with a clue
Since I often complain about the media, I figured I'd point out there good deeds as well:The shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was only hours old, police hadn't even identified the gunman, and yet already the perpetrator had been fingered and was in the midst of being skewered in the media.
Video games. They were to blame for the dozens dead and wounded. They were behind the bloodiest massacre in U.S. history.
Or so Jack Thompson told Fox News and, in the days that followed, would continue to tell anyone who'd listen.
...
When Jack Thompson gets worked up, he refers to gamers as "knuckleheads." He calls video games "mental masturbation."
When he's talking about himself and his crusade against violent games, he calls himself an "educator." He likes to use the word "pioneer."
...
Meanwhile, by Tuesday, The Washington Post had posted a story on its Web site stating that several youths who knew Cho said that in high school he'd been a fan of violent video games, especially "Counter-Strike."
But a short time later, the newspaper removed that paragraph from the story without explanation. Meanwhile, authorities released a search warrant listing the items found in Cho's dorm room. Not a single video game, console or gaming gadget was on the list, though a computer was confiscated. And in an interview with Chris Matthews of "Hardball," Cho's university suite-mate said he had never seen Cho play video games.
None of this seems to matter to Thompson.
"This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a video gamer," he told MSNBC.com.
And the trippiest part: even Rush Limbaugh is coming down on the side of reason this time.
Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There's more to this than that… it may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers…
People have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?
+ 7 - 7 | § ¶Vaudeville Tech
I'm sick of hearing about the Virginia Tech shootings.There. I said it. And I'm not sorry. (more)
+ 5 - 8 | § ¶Spitzer disappointment
I liked Spitzer - he seemed like a good, young, energetic, idealistic guy. He actually took on corruption, all that good stuff. And now this:
Gov. Eliot Spitzer will take a shot at violent videos and video games as part his remaining 2007 legislative agenda that includes campaign finance reform, streamlining the courts, and energy development. Spitzer said he will soon provide a bill that would target the ratings of video movies and video games "'that are often violent and degrading"' and can hurt children who repeatedly use and view them.
Yes, think of the children! God knows that we can't, you know, have parents raising their own children in this country! I mean, somebody else, some big, bureaucratic organization, oughta step in and fix thinsg!
When it comes to free expression I take a pretty libertarian view, and when it comes to videogames, well, I play them. I know about them. I know full well that if a kid is "screwed up" by videogames, he was *actually* screwed up by something else first. This sort of "think of the children" political cashing-out is becoming all too comfortable for democrats who feel like they need some way to get "moralistic" appeal. Hillary Clinton is the pro at this, but I was surprised and saddened to see Spitzer follow suit. He should focus his energy on corporations, not consumers.