We The Free

60 Minutes Australia did a segment on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Allegedly, BP has asked them to remove the video from their website, but it is available on YouTube.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The transcription of the video is still left available on the 60 Minutes website.

“MICHAEL USHER: Critically, three weeks before the explosion, a crewman’s mistake damaged a crucial safety seal on a device known as the blowout preventer, designed to stop an explosion. The problem was discussed at a safety meeting onboard Deepwater Horizon. Mike Williams says the rig’s owner, Transocean, suggested a temporary shutdown. But BP, which owns the oil, demanded drilling continue.

“MIKE WILLIAMS: I had the BP company man sitting directly beside me. And he literally perked up and said, “Well, my process is different, “and I think we’re going to do it this way.” So there was sort of a chest bumping kind of deal. The communication seemed to really break down as to who was ultimately in charge.”

Click here to read the rest of the transcript

I had previously disabled creation of accounts, and had the settings configured to only allow posts from existing accounts. I’ve just installed a spam checker, so have enabled posts from people who aren’t signed in. Account creation is still a manual process, partly because I don’t expect anyone to care enough to create an account, and partly because the user list will still get filled with spam accounts regardless.

I don’t fancy playing whak-a-mole with the accounts. But if you want an account, just email me and ask.

The other option is to comment through Buzz, and I’ve just added a Buzz button to the posts to promote that.

There’s a new bad guy in town. Just when you thought that Microsoft and SCO were the only gangsters in the software world,a new player has been muscling in on their territory.

This is another article I wrote for Linux Forums.

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Linux Forums have published one of my articles, titled “Open Source Will Never Die.”

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There has been some press lately stemming from World of Warcraft. Blizzard have announced that they are enforcing restrictions on GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) guilds. No it doesn’t stand for Garlic, Lettuce, Bacon, and Tomato.

According to Blizzard, “we do feel that the advertisement of a GLBT friendly guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise.” They also think it may “incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game.“

Apparently this is their stance on guilds supporting real life religious communities as well.

Obviously there are a lot of people who are upset about this. But in the long run, this is a very good idea.

Look at it this way. You’re a GBLT-type person, and you promote your GBLT friendly guild in-game. Lots of anti-GBLT people are going to harass you just because they’re ignorant kids. Lots of other people are going to harass you for advertising something which doesn’t belong in the game.

First off, let me be the first to say that I have no problem with GBLTs, but I do have a problem with religious people. But my bias is completely irrelevant in WoW.

I am playing the game to kill monsters, do quests, get loot, and to immerse myself by having a jolly good time. I don’t give a flying donut if you’re a homo, or if you’ve got two sets of sexual organs. I don’t give a rat’s arse if you worship mythical being, good or evil.

What I want to know is, can you back me up in a fight?

What you do in real life is your own business. Keep it that way.

I figure this is an easier way to post this to the net. This article, which is a tutorial on bash scripting (a UNIX shell) was written for the Happy Hacker mailing list as one of the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking.

It never made it into Carolyn Meinel’s Happy Hacker book — because my mailexcite address died when Excite were bought out, and then due to my slackness a few years later for not writing Carolyn an official letter allowing her to publish it.

Either way, I retain the copyright, so here it is in its original glory. It is (c) 1998-2005 Spiro Harvey.
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I’ve just tried to purchase a copy of Quicktime Pro 7. Given that all I need to purchase is a little reg code and not a real boxed product, I actually expected less pain.

Turns out you can only buy if you’re from certain countries — New Zealand isn’t one of them.

I clicked on the store nearest me, Australia, and the suffering began. First I needed an Apple ID. Luckily I had one from when I signed up to Apple’s equally painful forums.

So I log in, and enter all my details. Except I couldn’t edit country, which remained permanently Australia. OK, so I don’t give a shit because they’re not going to ship me anything. I enter n/a in the State field, because oddly enough, NZ doesn’t have any states.

That didn’t work.

So I entered 00, which also failed. So I entered WN as an abbreviation of my city in NZ. No go. So it’s smart enough to know what states actually exist in Australia. Which means that somewhere down the track, something will probably fail.

But why the fuck do I have to go through all this trouble?

I now don’t own a copy of Quicktime Pro, and my respect for Americans has gone down another notch. No, it’s not just Apple. Most people in America aren’t actually aware that there are other countries that have evolved past the age of the neanderthals. And those who are worldly think that New Zealand is a little island off the bottom of Australia.

That’s Tasmania you inbred fucktards.

We’re our own fucking country and we want to be able to buy Quicktime Pro!

And we want the fucking iTunes store. And we want to be able to upload podcasts to your iTunes store. That is, if we could bloody register Quicktime to create the things in the first damned place.

I’m going to go on a Hulk rampage now.

I took the day off work today to watch Wrestlemania XXI, LIVE! It feel damned good watching a huge American pay-per-view live.

It was without a doubt the best Wrestlemania I’ve ever seen. Hulk Hogan made an appearance and beat the shit out of some Iraqi tossers, Stone Cold made a comeback, and Batista got the Heavyweight title off Triple H.

Finally, a month late, my magazine entitled Level One is on the shelves. Well, I hope so because I gave them to a shop.

One shop. Graphic in Cuba Street, Wellington, may the Lords of Comics bless them. They have not only taken my magazine on, but they are also taking copies to Armageddon in Wellington later this month. Hopefully, that will get some decent sales. I’ve sent it to another comic shop in Christchurch, and I have to ring back a couple of others.

If you want a copy, e me at levelone.mag (at) gmail.com. They’re $2.50 each, or $15 for a 1 year subscription (it’s bi-monthly).

If you’re from overseas, e me and we’ll talk. The prices are NZ$.

Alright, today is catch up day, so I’ll start with the first big event I forgot to blog…

My 30th was going to be a super-huge event with porno games, and ending the night in jelly wrestling.

As it turned out, there was plenty of drinking, plenty of games, buttloads of fun, but no damn jelly wrestling. The two chicks who were going to do it (there were 4 originally, but two wimped out) got busted driving drunk on the way to the party.

I’m glad this happened for two reasons: they’re idiots, and I would have kicked their arses if I had found out. They were told the booze was cheap. They were told they had a ride to the party and back home. But they chose to drink and drive anyway. Dumbarses.

But it wasn’t a complete loss, because we had a great blowjob competition (with bananas thankfully), a bouncing boobie piniata, balloon making competition, water pistol fights and a porno trivia competition. And did I mention booze?

It was fucking great. Apparently I had my hand up one girl’s skirt (who wasn’t my missus), but I don’t remember it. There are conflicting opinions of just how cosy we got, but I am confident I didn’t act out on any of my lecherous thoughts. And rumour has it that I pinched another girl’s hooters (who also wasn’t my missus), and this I am confident happened given that I have a photo of her showing me her fine titties. Damn fine titties.

Sorry Dear.

Moving right along.. my old mate Slayer came down from Hamilton, my uncle came down from Auckland, my traitorous mate Manta didn’t show up cos he was a pussy and got a cold. And driving down from Auckland just would have made him cry. Girly man.

I can’t remember anything else because I was completely fucking mullocked. I don’t think that’s a real word, but too bad.

The next party will be bigger, louder, have more jelly and more naked girls.

Viva la 40th!