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Sabrina sent along a link to these guys at Fairphone building Android based smartphones with an eye on being more socially responsible than your standard suicide net monstrosities. They need to sell a little over a thousand more pre-orders in the next two weeks to start production on what looks like a pretty cool little.

Their press kit says the phone will be completely unlocked, ready for root access. More details are obviously available on their site. Right now they're only shipping to locations in Europe, but if you know someone with an address in one of the countries listed, maybe it's something to consider.

Here's the pretty, feel-good video the site provides:

... and the device with specs.

Fairphone specs:

Dragontrail glass: Ultra thin and light; super durable and scratch-resistant
Mediatek 6589 chipset: Quad core CPU for faster processing and page loading
16 GB internal memory: For music, movies, apps, games and more
qHD display: 4.3 inches of touch-screen goodness
Dual front/ rear camera: 8 mp + 1.3 mp for photos and video calls
Android OS (4.2 Jelly Bean): Special interface developed by Kwame Corporation (Also open!)

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Just a few dudes, hanging out, lamenting the big mouth of a rape survivor. You know, any Friday night, really.

With a US proxy, check out the full documentary over at Frontline now.

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Fuck you, you condescending, smug, assholes.

Also, capitalize your name; lower case proper nouns aren't hip, they're illiterate.

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It's not completely clear the edges of why this is so depressing, exactly, but it is.

Cyanide and Happiness. Buy some of their books.

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This provides me with a bit of hope.

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Gametrailers.com is making me re-register following their site revamp and their Tees and Cees are prefaced with this little gem:

Social Project ("SP") is established in the United States, meaning that you are accessing a community network in the U.S. Any personal information you provide to SP is governed by and will be dealt with in accordance with the SP Privacy Policy and U.S. law. Please note that U.S. law provides a lower standard of protection for personal data than the laws of various countries including, but not limited to, the European Union.

Man, the truth hurts. Oh, and the link to their SP Terms is a 404. So pretty great work. Also, IIS? Really? If you say so guys.

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Sappy, tragic and lovely.

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Just like the title says. I threw together a toy to mess around with lighting patterns for Minecraft. I think it's correct. Popped out full size.

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Justice denied may still become justice delayed, but in these cases the price for our failure has already been paid. The burden borne by those who always end up paying: the poor and the powerless. The price for Pakistan's misoganistic society paid by an innocent woman. The price for Greece's corrupt government and imbalanced austerity plan paid by an elderly pensioner.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Fakhra Younas went under the surgeon’s knife 38 times, hoping to repair the gruesome damage inflicted by a vengeful Pakistani man who had doused her face in acid a decade earlier, virtually melting her mouth, nose and ears.
...
On March 17, after a decade of pining for Pakistan, a country she loved even though its justice system had failed her terribly, Ms. Younas climbed to the sixth-floor balcony of her apartment building in the southern suburbs of Rome and jumped. She was 33 years old.

The 77-year-old pensioner pulled the trigger as people were emerging from a nearby metro station in the morning rush hour. One witness told state TV that before shooting himself he had shouted, "I'm leaving because I don't want to pass on my debts."
...
The 77-year-old had written in his one-page, three-paragraph suicide note that it would be better to have a "decent end" than be forced to scavenge in the "rubbish to feed myself".

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I've written a piece about the recent Rush Limbaugh flap for DateDaily called: Missing The Forest For The Trees. That is all.

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For what it's worth I will be joining the strike on the 18th.

I tend to think there's a value in solidarity even for low traffic sites, so I'd encourage anyone with the ability to consider joining the blackout. My understanding is that there are Wordpress plugins available to simplify the process for most blogs.

That's all I've got.

After the fact...

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I copy the work of others. There are intellectuals without whom I would simply not be capable of elucidating a single thought. So barren and empty would be my understanding that I can scarcely believe I would be even a ghost of the man that I am today. Language is a tool to the masses through which we can express ourselves, and in so doing find some kind of connection with one another. To form a node, however delicate or indelicate, as the case may be, in this thing we call a civilization. You or I wield words with the incoherent but intense intent of a baboon mastering a newly found revolver. We elate or injure each other through sheer will. The image I intend to impress upon you is that of intellectual Neanderthals pounding at our chests for attention, or to express that we're hungry.

Yet, among the noise produced in the bleating tumult there are voices which ring true enough to cut through the cacophony. Signal piercing the noise. The world has just lost one of those rare signals in the static. I have never met Christopher Hitchens, and yet I feel comfortable in saying he has informed my adult understanding of the world around me nearly as much as any single figure could have. It would be a disservice to the man to suggest that I learned so little from him as to adopt his espoused positions, simply indoctrinated, and instead I feel I've come to know more about the process of thought itself. Hitchens had a ravenous hunger for truth regardless of whether that truth was philosophical, or literal, or spiritual truth. He had a immeasurable capacity for expression which tragically, and paradoxically is no longer present to formulate its own description.

There may be no spiritual ether into which the sum of the parts of Christopher Hitchens will pass to reside and educate and entertain its denizens, but as one of many I am certain he soothed my own bleating tangibly and in so doing with us all added materially to the civilization of the world. It is with a heavy heart I fear that no matter how many of my fellow mammals he has touched, the net civilization will still not approximate the loss of his signal in the noise.

It's impossible to crystallize a career of brilliance into a 2 minute clip, but my tiny mind wants to satisfy my urge to try, and so here it is:

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Democracy Now hosted Kamran Loghman yesterday to add some context to the UC Davis incident as one of the men who helped the FBI weaponize pepper spray in the 80's.

I can't help but include the specific refutation to Megan's lulz, but the whole interview is informative and interesting.

AMY GOODMAN: Fox’s Megan Kelly and Bill O’Reilly. Kamran Loghman, your response.

KAMRAN LOGHMAN: Well, first of all, in regards to pepper spray being a food ingredient. Aspirin also comes from bark of a tree so does wild yam is a natural herbal thing, but then again, what you derive from that becomes birth control pill. That doesn’t mean the end product is still something that you can eat. It is true that it is being derived from capsicum and chili pepper, but by the time it is weaponized and becomes a weapon grade product, you can’t eat it. I mean, it is impossible to eat the end product. So that’s that.

The whole thing is worth it if only for the vague disbelief in Amy Goodman's voice acknowledging the musical credit to Miley Cyrus for the previous break: "The singer and actress Miley Cyrus, yes, Hannah Montana, a new remix of her song, 'Liberty Walk.'".

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I shudder to think of the coverage when they discover the weapons cache more than five times larger than #OWS' in my kitchen.

my FOX NY

They should have stuck to stockpiling something safer, like pepper spray.

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What's your problem?


Yeah, you know what? I don't care.

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Yep. Wasted time doing this. I can't describe, honestly, I can't describe how much work I need to be doing. But here it is. A spreadsheet with MW3's SMGs, Assault Rifles, LMGs and Shotguns. The data is pulled from several different places.

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Title says it all. No real news yet. There are no doubt many live feeds up, and this is one of them.

After the fact...

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Laden with messages. Lightens the heart. Shocks the conscience. Fires the loins.

You can... um... go ahead and attach each sentence fragment a pane. At your own risk.

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Product of the intentionally stealthy preparations for the blockade run of the Tahrir and Saoirse very few people have heard about their departure from Turkey, or more importantly their run in with Israeli authorities. I'm not going to bother trying to summarize using my no doubt flawed understanding and will leave that to Democracy Now's reporting from Nov 3, Nov 4 and this blurb from the Democracy Now site:

Democracy Now! has just learned Israel has detained our correspondent Jihan Hafiz while on assignment. She was on board the Canadian ship, the Tahrir, covering the "Freedom Waves to Gaza" flotilla. Hafiz has been filing daily video reports this week from aboard the Tahrir. The reports have aired on Democracy Now! and distributed internationally by the Reuters news agency.

We lost contact with Jihan Hafiz earlier today shortly before the Israeli Navy intercepted the Tahrir and the Irish ship Saoirse. Both ships had left Turkey on Wednesday bound for Gaza.

Hafiz is a U.S. citizen born in California. Her family lives in Arlington, Virginia.

We urge Democracy Now! viewers and listeners to call your Senators and Representatives to encourage them to help secure the immediate release of journalist Jihan Hafiz along with her equipment and footage.

Numbers for U.S. Senators can be found here

Numbers for U.S. Representatives can be found here

I'd point out there are lots of other people without the blessed status of US citizenship as well. The Canadian Boat to Gaza site has a very short post: "I write to you from cell 9 of the Apartheid State of Israel" that at least on the surface suggests that the entire group has been detained.

Screencap from: therealnews.com: Jihan Hafiz on Reporting From Libya

After the fact...

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Child's Play is a great charity with a low, low (approx 5%) administrative fee that gives video games to sick children. You need to read more you stingy jerk? Fine. You sick, selfish bastards can read more below, and the rest of us will: donate online, Text 'GAMERS' to 50555, friend on facebook and follow on twitter.

From the Child's Play about page:

Since 2003, we’ve set up and organized Child’s Play, a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide. Over the years, you as a community have answered the call and come together to raise millions of dollars.

Child’s Play works in two ways. With the help of hospital staff, we set up gift wish lists full of video games, toys, books, and other fun stuff for kids. By clicking on a hospital location on our map, you can view that hospital’s wish list and send a gift.

Child’s Play also receives cash donations throughout the year. With those cash donations, we purchase new consoles, peripherals, games, and more for hospitals and therapy facilities. These donations allow for children to enjoy age-appropriate entertainment, interact with their peers, friends, and family, and can provide vital distraction from an otherwise generally unpleasant experience.

Now stop reading and give them money because either you have too much or you're not a sick kid in a hospital. If you're a sick kid in a hospital please disregard this message.

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Montreal was, yesterday the 15th October, and is continuing to be Occupied to some as yet undetermined level of effect.

I stopped by the Occupation yesterday for a little while to grab a picture or two, see what was the what and most importantly to make the crowd of people one person larger. Just one of the "Students, unions, homeless people, artists, drummers and people of all sorts gathered..." mentioned by CTV, I suppose. I guess I'll choose to be an 'all sorts' of person, though the list suggests more drummers and homeless were present than employed professionals. Who am I to say, right? Well, I'm the sort who was there and doesn't recall seeing swarms of homeless or drummers. I guess we don't want to let reality stand in the way of a comfortable narrative.

I have no idea if a protest of a thousand people has any value, but I'd still encourage anyone who hasn't yet to go down and be counted. If nothing else there are at least drummers to enjoy.

Also, should you wish for some real information about the occupation, there is at least one Facebook page, and of course there are twits on the twitterfeedburner.net.

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What am I going to do, not put it on my site?

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The Minecraft 1.8 beta is out. Those bastards.

... they pull me back in.

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I'd like to share a small sample of the 325 photo study I'm preparing for a showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York. It is a dramatic opus in uninterrupted continuum I have titled: "Man Watching Michael Bay's 'Transformers'".

"Disbelief"

"Bewilderment"

"An Appeal to the Gods"

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I’m brushing up on AC3D for a development project and as a result I measured my apartment and modeled it so I could decorate one of the walls efficiently. I gave two reasons there. Let’s go with the brushing up on development because that makes me less ridiculous.

(This in 3ds)

I need to get up to (and ideally) nine game racks onto the wall, hopefully in some kind of interesting way. Maybe some kind of spiral? Suggestions are welcome, because I have no creativity whatsoever.

Home improvement is hard. I've been "painting this wall" for something like four weeks and it isn't even painted. It's primed. It's like, at the stage where I can start doing the work. Fuck that. It's a white wall now. Like the man said: Fuck the Karate Kid.

Sure am taking this vapid, all about me approach seriously, eh?

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Important things are important to me. I hate them, I hate them. They’re stupid, stupid, stupid. This summary meant to read like a tantrum.

The banking system, peak oil, religion, politics, homelessness, fish stocks, starvation, genocide are all important topics to me as they are to everyone else. I’d hazard that I think about them at a rate that would be considered higher than average. Here’s the thing, right, I don’t know anything about anything I consider to be important. What I just said is a lie, but it isn’t much of one. I think I know quite a bit about things I consider important, but what I don’t know is teachable amounts about things I consider important. Preaching on a subject, in my mind, requires that the preacher have an intimate knowledge of that subject driven by an authority earned in education or experience. I don’t care what you think about nuclear energy unless you’re a nuclear physicist, or an environmental engineer, or an analyst who can effectively source a nuclear physicist or environmental engineer, and so on.

The above is a glib description, and so is incomplete, but it is also representative. I have all manner of opinion on all manner of topic that I’ve no sufficient experience or competence to discuss with certainty or authority. So, I don’t write anything of a nature I consider to be valuable or relevant.

There are things I occasionally would like to write about and that I’m qualified and competent to write about in that they require no meaningful competence or qualification. I could write about is programming, or video games or things of that nature. These things are not important. I like them, and while I would not say they are important to me, they do occupy a great deal of my time and attention and as a result I have all manner of opinion on them. As it turns out these subjects don’t really matter, and so, I don’t write about them.

See how that works? I can’t write about important things because they’re too important, and I can’t write about unimportant things because they’re not important. Well, that’s bullshit, isn’t it? Leaving aside briefly the psychological ramifications of being competent only in frivolity, I’d really like to be able to write because I like writing. Also, I want sweets, boobies, and to never have to work again.

This is where being moderately clever and of low moral fiber comes in. I have unleashed the Power of Rationalization upon my own value system and it was super effective. So, I’m going to drop the idea that I have any standards or narrative for what will appear on this page. I’ve also given myself permission to use the word boobies. I didn’t really follow that rule before, so it’s not a big deal, but it’s nice to have it there in the toolbox.

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In other news there's still that a potential genocide thing going on in South Kordofan, Sudan. Boooooorrrrrriiiiiing.

Maybe they'll be lucky and there'll be a sex scandal involving someone white along side all the black people being murdered and such.

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On the floor in my building's foyer. Terrified of the cameras forcing him out on the street. I haven't a drink to give him. I wouldn't do to him what I'd do to myself. He had his shoes off and one foot without a sock. His foot looked club. He was excited about having his feet on carpeted floor, right until he saw the empty camera bubble above the hallway. Ian had a cane, and used it, either in a successfully deceptive way, or legitimately. Limped into the hallway.

A pizza pocket was worth being exceptionally happy. A warm pizza pocket and ten bucks made his night. I'm just coming home. I wish I knew more about him, but I don't. I know not a thing at all.

Ian is sleeping somewhere on my street tonight, and I'll be watching TV on my iphone when I crawl into bed.

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A really great experience, even if I did't actually get to see or hear many of the performances. I'm looking forward to watching the video later to see what I couldn't. Most of my pictures are garbage, or trapped on my phone, but I nabbed a couple decent shots before the batteries in my camera went dead. The crowd shots are from my perch on a fence. I got really lucky for the last hour.

I've taken a truly ludicrous number of touristy shots, like this. Everywhere you go around the mall is something that screams to be photographed. Watching the sun set behind the Lincoln National Memorial from the Washington Monument was a pretty powerful experience.

Without exaggeration, almost everyone at my hotel came for the Rally. At least, everyone I've spoken with. That was every last person at the bar both last night and tonight. Not exactly a large sample, but pretty exciting regardless. Everyone I've encountered has been exceptionally friendly. I suppose a rally for sanity draws such folk.

Right now I'm pretty exhausted, and this keyboard is very tiny, so I'll leave any in depth writing for later.

Oh, for the record, if you'd like to get through customs without a lot of questions asked the correct answer to "Why are you going to Washington?" is not to go to a political rally.