I finished a set of Cold War-era NATO microarmor for a game, and started work on a group of Minbari star ships. With the base done on the Minbari ships, I took a break and started to build two Shadow Omegas. Unfortunately, the Shadow Omegas are difficult to put together with pieces breaking off easily because there are no mount points for the spines.
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Resistance to Chinese Censorship Goes Virtual
Boing Boing reported that an hour long video satire of Chinese government censorship, called War of Internet Addiction, has had 10 million views by Chinese netizens. It was filmed entirely in World of Warcraft.
You can find commentary at DigiCha and YouKu Buzz.
The original video is at the YouKu Buzz link, but the speed is very slow. You can find an English subtitled version at YouTube in seven installments.
This is all I will say about my younger doppelgänger
This is all I will say about my younger doppelgänger for now:
Thanks to This Modern World and Salon.com!
Pirates need to go local, not fork nationally
The Pirate Party started in Sweden and their platform is to reform copyright law, abolish the patent system and promote respect for the right to privacy. They won two seats in the European Parliament in 2009 and have scored some success in Germany as well. Membership wise, they are the second largest party in Sweden and their youth group has the largest membership of any Swedish political party.
In the US however, Pirate Party supporters seem to be a fractious lot. Besides the Pirate Party International approved Pirate Party of the United States, there once was a United States Pirate Party. Now there is an American Pirate Party, a USA Pirate Party and some time ago I found a third US-based Pirate Party web site. The Greens in the US had their own schism in the 90's, that was mostly resolved in 2000, but this situation seems a bit much.
While I like their ideals and positions, they really need to concentrate on building state and local chapters instead of creating more national Pirate Parties. sigh…
In praise of comforts (not quite an antidote to the last post)
Lucy Knisley, a cartoonist among other responsibilities, has a comic in praise of comforts, which isn't quite in opposition to my last post, but is a bit. The comic is rather small in the space available on my blog, so just click on the image and you will go to her page.
Just another damn quote from a tree hugger! [Good, we need more!]
Mark Boyle over at Just for the love of it posted a useful piece on why he attempts to live a life of zero waste and simplicity. Here is one quote:
"Because we are so disconnected from the embodied energy, embodied
suffering and embodied destruction that goes into the things we buy,
the natural ecology of the planet we share is being eroded by the
minute, factory farms and horrific slaughterhouses have become insanely
'normal', and we kill millions of people in the middle east just so
that us greedy bastards can have the luxurious, built-in-obsolescence
gadgetry that oil cheap oil affords us. I am sorry if that sounds
harsh, but the truth shouldn't be avoided for fear of offence. One of
the problems in the media and the publishing world is that everyone is
so cautious that they'll upset the reader and lose some sales, and so
the truth is rarely laid bare. We're adults though, so lets all grow
up, it's really our ego's that are making this planet inhabitable for
many species."
It’s all starting to make sense now [humor]
The latest This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow. Guaranteed to irk a few people, but hopefully will make more laugh. I just had to share. Thanks Salon.com!
