Kristyn linked me to Russing dies after winning drinking contest.#

A vodka-drinking competition in a southern Russian town ended in tragedy with the winner dead and several runners-up in intensive care.

"The competition lasted 30, perhaps 40 minutes and the winner downed three half-litre bottles. He was taken home by taxi but died within 20 minutes," said Roman Popov, a prosecutor pursuing the case in the town of Volgodonsk.

"Five contestants ended up in intensive care. Those not in hospital turned up the next day, ostensibly for another drink."

AOL makes best feature ever available for AIM.#

Utterly Boring links to The 10 Most Overpaid Jobs in the U.S., it could surprise you.#

"Fair compensation" is a relative term, yet HR consultants and executive headhunters agree some jobs command excessive pay that can't be explained by labor supply-and-demand imbalances.

And while it's easy to argue chief executives, lawyers and movie stars are overpaid, reality is not that cut and dried.

Corporate attorneys earn $500-plus an hour and plaintiffs lawyers pocket a third of big personal-injury settlements, but local prosecutors and public defenders get paid little in comparison. Specialty surgeons may earn $1 million or more, while some family-practice doctors are hard-pressed to pay off medical-school loans.

Fair is what you're willing to pay. It seems like all the jobs listed are ones where institutions (unions, schools, social norms, fears, etc) prevent people from paying what they think people really deserve.

jjdaley links to art for art's sake, a useless website.#

Michael Williams writes about the left crying wolf.#

At some point, the various anti-war-ok-we're-really-just-on-the-other-side folks are going to realize that the more they cry wolf when there aren't any wolves, the less effect their cries are going to have. Everyone likes free speech, and when people complain of government intimidation I get concerned... at first... but after a while, the complaints themselves become evidence that there's no oppression going on. If the kids were smart, they'd try to build some credibility just in case there ever is a wolf.

[...]

"The F.B.I. is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern about whether we're going back to the days of Hoover."

The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred? Gee, I wonder how that came about? It wouldn't have anything to do with the American Civil Liberties Union getting involved in terror issues, would it? Not that there aren't real concerns, but this type of nonsense eliminates the credibility of serious warnings.

Lilia Efimova writes about blogging as a way to connect the loose ends.#

There is something I don't like about blogging: it makes all the loose ends visible.

I usually have more ideas than time to implement them. Blogging is perfect for it: you've got a minute, you post an idea, a conversation develops, you follow it and think of writing a story to pull all the bits together and to reflect, but then next busy week comes and there is no time anymore and new ideas are getting written down. For me this was usual - coming up with more ideas than time to implement them. But blogging is changing it. Once ideas are written down I have a visible trace of things I forgot to do and it pains to look back and to see them waiting for me to come back and to work them out.

Kevin Marks syndicates John C. Mahler's "Co-opting the future," which is about "trolls."#

Trolls, are all the rage in some quarters. We're told that trolls will evolve into a unique source of information and are sure to become the future of journalism. Well, hardly. Two things are happening to prevent such a future: The first is wholesale abandonment of troll sites, and the second is the casual co-opting of the troll universe by Big Media.

Let's start with abandoned trolls. Thanks to busy debunkers trolling has got harder.

The most obvious reason for abandonment is simple boredom. Writing is tiresome. Why anyone would do it voluntarily on a troll mystifies a lot of professional writers. This is compounded by a lack of feedback, positive or otherwise. Perseus thinks that most trolls have an audience of about 12 readers. Leaflets posted on the corkboard at Albertsons attract a larger readership than many trolls. Some people must feel the futility.

Adam Curry wrote an essay about Celebrity and America in response to Michael Jackson.#

When it comes to sexuality I find american culture to be completely off center.

We'll never forget Frank from the one hour photomat, who warned us that we shouldn't take pictures of our daughter naked. "People might take it the wrong way". Huh? She was 4 years old and wearing her mousketeer ears and mom's high heels.

From that day on I never dared to take a bath with my own daughter for fear she might offhandedly mention it at school, triggering a witchunt against those 'long haired european MTV freaks'.

Our fears were confirmed when a 'representative' of 'all the mothers' came to our house requesting that my wife wear 'loose fitting clothes' when picking up Christina from school becuase "the boys are noticing".

Its intersting to examine a culture that mounts camera's on 'smart bombs' to view 'the kill' on the 6 o'clock news, but freaks out if a nipple of a [female] breast is flashed on tv. Men killing each other in the desert is heroic and perfectly ok for viewers of all ages. Two men kissing passionately is rarely, if ever, seen on television.

Halley comments on Glenn Reynolds on marriage and sex.#

Glenn has some great Alpha Male things to say about enjoying many partners BEFORE marriage. There's going to be a lot of talk about marriage in the next few weeks with the recent ruling in Massachusetts and David Brooks' op-ed on gay marriage in The New York Times kicking off the discussion. I think heterosexual marriage is disintegrating as an institution. It will be interesting when there are more gay marriages than straight marriages one of these days.

Glenn:

Got a few emails like this one:

So you are saying promiscuity is OK? That indiscriminate sex is OK? That degrading your self for sexual gratification is OK? Is this what you teach your children? I don't agree with you at all! Gay sex is not natural nor normal and cannot strengthen our decaying traditional moral values!

Hmm. I didn't say anything about "indiscriminate sex," now did I? Funny that some people can't conceive of anything else. Nor was my pre-marital love life "Hefneresque," as another reader puts it. These strike me as rather revealing reactions -- much like those who, on another topic, assume that all war is equivalent to "carpet bombing" or that owning a gun guarantees mass slaughter. Moderation, apparently, is inconceivable to some people.

User Creations proposes a "MetaOS" to compete with MacOS.#

Context

• Apple's blurred the line between the OS and apps
• Obvious competitive response is to package a collection of apps and a bit of infrastructure and market it as an OS

Assumptions

• Future Apple OS releases won't offer compelling performance increases over existing versions
• Value proposition of future OS releases will be new functionality, most of which is already well-provided by 3rd parties
• Apple will continue to do community/authenticity horribly—among the worst in the business
• Apple won't be investing in independent developers
• Apple's idol CEO story is plaaaaaaayed

Doug Miller comments on Charlie Stross and his disagreement with Bush.#

[Charlie:] The devil is in the details.

Indeed, the devil is precisely in the details on this issue, and this is the problem I have with the Bush administration. I, like Mr. Stross, can find myself in agreement with the administration concerning much of the "big picture" around this issue, and at the same time object vehemently to the manner in which the situation is being handled. The administration, on the other hand, sneeringly brands anyone who disagrees with the details of its actions anti-American and damn near a traitor. They completely take the attitude of "my way or the highway" regarding any disagreement, even with their tactics. As a result, they come off as frustratingly alienating, elitist in the extreme, arrogant and down-right incompetent at foreign policy.

While the same could easily be said of the governments of France and Germany, and I have similar disdain for Chriac and Schroeder, I have higher expectations of our government. Not because I believe Americans are inherently superior to the French or Germans, but principally because this is my government, and because our power and authority on the world stage demands a higher standard.

Kuro5hin.org links to the NewsMax report of General Franks' comments about the Constitution and WMDs.#

"If [WMD attacks happen], Franks said, '... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.'

Franks then offered 'in a practical sense' what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.

'It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.'

Doug Miller comments,

Well, there's a cherry thought, isn't it? While I'm forced to admit that I've had similar thoughts on occasion, with all due respect I think General Franks underestimates the people of the United States. While we can be lazy, self-indulgent, and self-obsessed quite a bit of the time, I'm convinced that there's a point beyond which we simply won't voluntarily surrender our rights. Looking back at the historical record, I think it far more likely that we'd elect to take draconian steps against our attackers to prevent future attacks than we would be to "hunker down" behind the imagined protections of a police state.

Jeremy Zawodny on "Microsoft Lies, Scoble Style."#

On the plus side, he partially redeems himself by being honest about Microsoft and security.

One reason I don't like promising fixes, though, is cause we don't have much, if any, credibility left when discussing security. So, any promises would ring hollow.

No shit?

+1 for stating the obvious. A lot of folks higher up in Microsoft that probably wouldn't be so honest (you know, stating the obvious and all) in public.

Perhaps Bill also generates a reality distortion field, but one of a very different nature than Steve Jobs.

Don't even get me started on his notion of XP service pack #2 helping with Windows security in a big way. What about all the Win98 and Win2K users out there?

Longhorn might be delayed until they figure out how to fix the security problems it already has? Great. That means they've designed yet another OS with a poor security model. As if good security as a requirement is somehow so new that it came up after Longhorn was designed. How long have Microsoft's OSes been used by businesses in network environments again?

Richard writes that the Dark Side is undeniably cooler.#

"When I played Knights of the Old Republic, I couldn't bring myself to play darkside. I had 100% light side points before I was half done with the game."

I'm a self-professed (albeit recovering) nice guy , but not so nice that, when playing Star Wars games, I feel the need to be a nice guy in that realm too. It's been a while now, but I remember playing Jedi Knight II and thinking "let's just kill everybody, even the non-combattants", which meant that, in the end, my character turned to the Dark Side. But don't you oppose the killing of innocent civilians, you might protest? Yes, but not when it comes to Star Wars games. I have yet to take a scientific poll on the matter, but I contend that Nice Guys, especially nerdy Nice Guys, and especially nerdy Nice Guys who have been served healthy servings of Star Wars (the "first" three particularly) in their youth, would pick the Dark Side. Because the Dark Side is undeniably cooler.

Gary Hart writes about John F. Kennedy.#

Twenty years after he challenged us to consider what we could do for our country, another president with starkly different values said that government, and by implication public service, was "the problem". It is no accident that political discourse has steadily declined since that time and that nobility of public service is being defiled by the barbarians.

Nevertheless, the ideal of civic duty, restored by John Kennedy from ancient Greece, lives on. To succumb to the notion that it's every man (or woman) for himself, and devil take the hindmost, is to surrender to the worst in human nature, to reduce human life to selfish acquisition, to deny mankind's essential social nature. Life is not merely "nasty, brutish, and short", as the new voices of the very old right proclaim. When we raise up our better natures, we acknowledge that we are all in this together, and to serve our nation and our society is to demonstrate, as Faulkner said, that mankind will not only endure, it will prevail.

John Kennedy would have been the first to laugh at any personal idolatry. But he would be--and perhaps is--pleased to know that four decades after he was struck down his memory is honored by a new generation picking up the torch of human nobility, of service, or duty, and of hoping for a better nation and a better future.

Shelley Powers writes about leftish assumptions and the "Tickle Me Kucinich" doll.#

We started this war. We didn't want it, but we got it. We can't just leave right now and have someone else clean things up. Kucinich is so two-dimensionally liberal, why bother listening to him speak? Just create a "Leftist" Ken doll with a string that when pulled, plays:

"Hi, I'm Dennis Kucinich. Want to be my friend?"

Oh I know he's a good man, and he cares. I admire his putting the links to the Diebol tapes up on his Congressional web site. I admire him advocating that voting machine code should be open source and available to one and all, just like the code controlling the comments to this weblog. Howver, this essay isn't about Kucinich, title notwithstanding. Or only about Kucinich. This is about assumptions and stereotypes, cookie cutter liberals and molded conservatives.

Just when you make assumptions about the American people, any people really, they have a tea party and you know you're in trouble.

I've noticed with Kucinich supporters that they have an assumption that those who disagree with them are either right wing conservatives, usually with a lot of money, poorly educated racist whites in southern states, or Democrats selling out for power. Otherwise, you wouldn't disagree. How could you? The man's voice rings out so clear on all these issues. You know exactly where he'll stand on any of them without even having to ask him. What's not to love about the perfect ideologically left candidate?

Michael Feldman writes about Channel Z and organizing by hierarchy.#

For quite some time we have been wary of outliners in general, as being typical of top-down, hierarchical thinking in general. The rigidity of hierarchies seemed to us typical of what we though of as Unix-think, a directory/sub-directory world-view endemic among programmers and one of the barriers between them and the people who would actually be using their products. A world-view which, in our decidedly analog opinion, made it more rather than less difficult to "think outside the box".

But the outliner at the heart of Channel Z is a flexible organizer which is most notable for its ability to create links BETWEEN widely separate and disparate branches of the overall tree, and find and trace relations between information streams which would otherwise not be obviously connected. The ability to create, change, add and shuffle levels and categories allow myriad new ways of organizing and accessing the content, whatever and wherever it is.

The more we though about it, the more we realized that the inherent hierarchical nature of outlines is dictated only by the two-dimensionality of the displays we use to interact with them. Furthermore, we decided that this tendency to view information two-dimensionally is a transitory aberration in the evolution of human information processing.

Joey Gibson wasn't impressed by The Cat in the Hat.#

I don't know if I can really explain just how terrible it was, but perhaps this will help. The one thing that was heard in the packed theater, filled with kids of all ages: silence. Yes, no body was laughing, at all! Not even the kids. My son hardly cracked a smile, though on the way out we did get the ceremonial "let's go see it again, dad!" The closest thing to laughter that I heard was some adults groaning at some of the gross "humor."

Kasia writes about being hit on in Borders.#

As I was browsing through the finest selection of Perl books on this side of route 9, a rather average looking 20-some year old with a smirk approached me.

"I heard you singing"

I think I may have blinked at that, not certain.

"Are you looking for an apology?"

I asked rather pleasantly, I tend to be polite to strangers. He chuckled and lied.

Krystal missed a good show last night.#

Another reason is because I think I have developed a fear of shows and the people at them. I hate the moshers/dancers. I'm always afraid seeing a band live will ruin them (which has happened to so many bands in the last year.) I grow increasingly uncomfortable around groups of people I don't know. I think that is because I'm so close with only a few people and the groups put me out of my element. I feel the same about parties. They just spell awkward-moments for me. This is sad for me because I used to love to go to shows. I went every weekend and I just always had fun, even if the bands were terrible and the venue was shit.