RIAA sends a crusader to Wellington with the aim of encouraging the government to reinstate s92a as it was originally planned in its original undemocratic glory.
He has also brought with him almost 20,000 comic books that will be given to school children. The latter strikes me as a better approach, even though it will no doubt be full of fear-mongering. But education seems to me as being the right alternative to bad law.
UncategorizedWith so many governments jumping on the “let’s disconnect pirates” bandwagon, it strikes me as a pertinent time to offer up an alternative.
First why do we need an alternative? Shouldn’t pirates be disconnected so they can’t re-offend? Perhaps from one point of view; however the same governments that want to disconnect people also seem to think that Internet access is a human right. So how do we get into a situation where the same people are giving us two completely opposed views in different sentences?
First off, let’s figure out what contributes to making the Internet a human right.
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UncategorizedWhat’s old is new. 
I’ve been avoiding 4th edition D&D because, well, quite frankly it’s gone down a path that has changed it a lot. Everyone has said it — including the famous Kurt Wiegel — it’s just not recognisable as the D&D brand. The first set of rule books just don’t have the standard tropes we expect in D&D, and in fact, all Tolkienesque fantasy. More has been said about the changes being made to suit computer games.
A lot has been said, and I won’t rehash it, partly because I don’t remember what I hated about it when reading the rulebooks upon their release.
But now the game has changed.
Wizards have announced the next forthcoming campaign setting: Dark Sun.
Perhaps they know how fickle we old coots are, waving our walking sticks at every young slacker that walks across our lawn, but perhaps they also know that we geeks are suckers and will fall for anything if it’s shiny enough or reminds us of our youth. Games Workshop certainly know this better than most. And if Wizards didn’t know it before, this may certainly increase the chance of their enlightenment.
Dark Sun is not being advanced in time like Forgotten Realms. It’s not being reimagined like every show on television. It’s being left intact, released with its original intent. In fact, Wizards are re-releasing Denning’s Prism Pentad series and fully expect players to fully expect the setting to be instantly recognisable.
This is utterly terrible news for those of us who have been avoiding 4th ed as if it were a soggy, leaking rubbish bag.
But it’s also great news for those of us who have really missed playing Dark Sun.
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.
read more | digg story
Linux Forums have published one of my articles, titled “Open Source Will Never Die.”
read more | digg story
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 $15 for a 1 year subscription (it’s bi-monthly).
If you’re from overseas, e me and we’ll talk. The prices are NZ$.
