Quotulatiousness

December 9, 2010

The Two Scotts say thumbs down on the Vikings

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:51

Not surprisingly, the two Scotts think that the Giants are going to win their matchup with Minnesota on Sunday:

New York Giants (minus 2.5) at Minnesota

Reid: Favre is listed as questionable for Sunday after being knocked out of last week’s game on his first passing attempt. Of course, no one really expects the Vikings to bring Brett’s crusade for 300 straight starts to an end — so Tarvaris Jackson has, once again, been sent out to pick up smokes. In a sad effort to convince the coaches he was ready, Jackson even pretended last week to be Favre by tossing three interceptions. No luck. This streak ends at season’s end or with Jenn Sterger moving into Favre’s bungalow. Pick: New York.

Feschuk: Brett Favre is having an annus way more horribilis than that one the Queen had. With Dong-gate now in the hands of the Commissioner, it’s worth reflecting on the details of the poorly understood NFL Code of Conduct policy. Exactly what does it demand of players like Favre? Here are a few excerpts of note:

     * Players are expected to report ON TIME for all meetings, scrimmages and police lineups.
     * Mandatory snickering in the huddle when the quarterback calls for a “two-minute drill.”
     * If you’re buying prostitutes, make sure you bring enough for the whole team.
     * When getting dressed for a public appearance, players are asked to remember that the penis goes on the inside.

Pick: New York.

Bruce Schneier on the WikiLeaks situation

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:48

Bruce Schneier has some useful observations about the ongoing WikiLeaks document release:

4. This has little to do with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is just a website. The real story is that “least trusted person” who decided to violate his security clearance and make these cables public. In the 1970s he would have mailed them to a newspaper. Today he uses WikiLeaks. Tomorrow he will have his choice of a dozen similar websites. If WikiLeaks didn’t exist, he could have put them up on BitTorrent.

5. I think the government is learning what the music and movie industries were forced to learn years ago: it’s easy to copy and distribute digital files. That’s what’s different between the 1970s and today. Amassing and releasing that many documents was hard in the paper and photocopier era; it’s trivial in the Internet era. And just as the music and movie industries are going to have to change their business models for the Internet era, governments are going to have to change their secrecy models. I don’t know what those new models will be, but they will be different.

Preview of The Guild: Vork

Filed under: Gaming, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:54

Guild fans will be interested to see the first five pages of the The Guild: Vork at PopCandy:

As you may know, I’m a huge fan of The Guild, the funny, imaginative, geeky, gleeful and addictive web series created by Felicia Day. If you’ve seen one episode, chances are you’ve seen them all. (And bonus: The talented Wil Wheaton added some spark to the last two seasons.)

It makes sense that The Guild would branch out to comics, since much of its audience probably consists of comic-book fans. On Dec. 22 Dark Horse will issue The Guild: Vork, a story written by Day and Jeff Lewis (the actor who plays Vork in the series).

I offered you a preview of the Guild covers a few months ago. Now hold your breath, because I have the first six pages of Vork right here

QotD: Ontario’s “restrictive, puritanical, liquor laws”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty, Quotations, Wine — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:20

Later in the trip we were at a Napa Valley winery. During our winery tour, the guide mentioned that if we filled out an order form we could have a case of wine delivered to home or office. Then she stopped, looked at my friend and me, and said, “Oh wait, not to Ontario. You guys are worse than Utah.” She proceeded to list all the countries they ship to, two of which have majority Muslim populations. But Ontario was too much trouble, so they gave up trying. We could buy the wine and bring it over the border ourselves, but if it were to be shipped across the border it would clearly be illegal.

Our restrictive, puritanical, liquor laws are not just limited to restricting products or preventing private stores from selling alcohol. On our trip it became a running joke to point out things that were banned in Ontario. Happy hour is illegal in Ontario. I pointed to a seasonal winter beer in at a convenience store with a cartoon picture of Santa Claus on the label and noted it would be banned in Ontario. There is cheap beer across the U.S. because of intense competition, but Ontario has a price floor of $1.07 per bottle.

So I pose the question that I was asked in the bar in San Francisco. Why are we so puritanical when it comes to alcohol?

Hugh MacIntyre, “Ontario’s liberalism dies at the brewery door”, National Post, 2010-12-08

A step closer to private space travel

Filed under: Space, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule was successfully launched into orbit:

Judging by the excited faces of SpaceX employees after the live webcast, everything went perfectly. Dragon, the world’s first orbital space capsule built by the private sector, will now orbit the planet a few times over the next couple of hours before splashing down in the Pacific.

It is a small but significant milestone. The unmanned demonstration mission wants to prove that Dragon is able to deliver crew and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The reason for all the excitement is that the working capsule really points the world firmly in the direction of greater involvement by the private sector in providing trips to space. More competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean better access. After the retirement of the shuttle, Dragon would be able to deliver crew and cargo to the ISS on top of a Falcon 9 rocket.

Here’s hoping that NASA won’t succeed in choking off/crowding out other private launch efforts.

More information (including some graphics) at the BBC website.

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