Seriously, man. How does that even get on the news?

Let’s put aside hearing what you want to hear, and put aside the obvious fact that a sound sample could be used in multiple places (as was apparently the case here), and we’ll put aside the fact that there’s apparently one woman out there whose sole occupation is finding pro-muslim-mind-warping-children’s-toys (Next week’s headline: Line from story book is anagram for “Muslim die pro love satin”… because I’m sure in her mind members of Islam can’t spell…)

Putting all that aside!

What an incredible misunderstanding of how the gaming industry actually works! You called up Nintendo, they said they didn’t make the damn thing, and then you use the fact that it was “licensed by them” as damning proof of their guilt! That sounds akin to calling up the NASDAQ every time a financial scandal happens - “Why would you engage in illegitimate transactions?” “Look lady, we’re a stock exchange! Leave us alone!”

How long will the media get a “free pass” on gaming and technology issues? I’m sure Nintendo explained exactly how things worked to them - but they entirely refused to do a Google search for the actual publisher and call them up.

(Source)

The government in France has decided to support their print industry with subsidies.

I’m not really convinced that that’s the way to go to “save the print industry”; but I think they’ve got at least one measure legitimately correct - all French teenagers, on their 18th birthday, get a free newspaper subscription for a year. How else are you going to get the next generation interested in print journalism, but by showing the next generation how good it can be?

Of course, I just realized that this could spur a “race to the bottom”, with the inclusion of prizes and freebees to encourage people to subscribe to their paper - sort of like cereal box crap but for 18 year olds. (Of course, the other way it could go would be to start seeing legitimate media actually pay attention to the issues that affect young citizens, which would be kind of awesome).

So… race to the bottom, or new age of enlightenment?

I’ve finally bit the bullet, and I’m on a real cell phone plan.

Number’s the same, so far as anyone calling is concerned nothing’s changed.

Only difference is that I’ve got unlimited local calling after 5:00, and unlimited incoming and outgoing text messages (so, if you want to call and it’s likely we’ll talk for a bit… try and call after 5:00; and feel free to text any time).

… every time I have to send mail.

Inevitably, I find myself having to visit this page to determine exactly how I should be formatting the address information.

In my defense, I’ve probably sent 2 letters in the last 4 years - it’s not a skill I use often.

Major spoilers if you haven’t seen the latest BSG, so be warned.

There’re display screens all over UW; all they basically do is flash a slide show of advertisements. The best thing with which to build a dumb, always-on, 100% uptime terminal? Evidently, Windows XP.

Awesomesauce…