Quotulatiousness

September 18, 2012

Guild Wars 2 to be available on Mac OS X

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:39

ArenaNet just announced that they will be releasing Guild Wars 2 for Macintosh computers (so you Mac heads now have no excuse for not playing Guild Wars 2):

Today we’re happy to announce another major milestone in the development of Guild Wars 2: going forward, ArenaNet will also be supporting the game on Apple’s Mac OS X. The Mac Beta client is available immediately for all Guild Wars 2 players. It shares the same features and connects to the same live game servers as the PC client. Anyone who purchases Guild Wars 2 can now play it on both PC and Mac.

Bringing Guild Wars 2 to the Mac is huge for us, because it introduces the game to an entire group of players who are often ignored by game developers. The ability to play together with your friends is one of the underlying principles of Guild Wars 2, and providing a Mac client means that friends and guildmates can play together regardless of what operating system they favor.

Publishers hit libraries with big ebook price hike

Filed under: Books, Business, Media, Technology — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:49

Techdirt has the details:

Publishers are at it again, levying what amount to economic sanctions against that infamous freeloader hangout, The Library. In a move that will endear it to exactly no one, Hachette is increasing its back catalog prices 220% for ebooks, sticking it to the cherished public institutions whose shelves (including the digital ones) are lined with nothing but Lost Sales (apparently).

Hachette has been hard at work dragging its reputation through the mud. You may remember it from a few weeks ago, when it greeted Tor’s announcement that it was going DRM-free with “HAHAHA but no, seriously, there will be DRM.” This move seems ill-advised at best, what with some authors banding together to offer their titles to libraries for $dirt cheap, a price that falls more in line with the economic realities of the average library.

Hachette isn’t the only publishing fish in the sea (and not even the only fish to jack up its prices — Random House dialed its prices up 300% in March). Hachette is one of several publishers, many of whom haven’t increased prices (or at least, not as severely). Of course, other publishers have gone other routes, including limiting the number of lends on their ebooks, making their digital offerings the equivalent of poorly manufactured physical books (Falls Apart After 26 Uses!). As a whole, the Big Six treat libraries like an intrusive vagrant.

September 17, 2012

The real defence debate (that isn’t happening in the election campaign)

Filed under: Government, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 14:00

Scott Rasmussen outlines the stark contrast between how ordinary Americans feel about their country’s defence establishment and how the politicians they elect fail to reflect those feelings:

As a starting point, Americans are proud of their country and hold its armed forces in high regard. Seventy-nine percent would rather live here than anywhere else, and at a time of deep cynicism about large institutions 81 percent have a favorable opinion of the U.S. military.

Yet this respect and admiration for the troops co-exists with doubts about the jobs they’ve been asked to do. Most voters now believe it was a mistake for the U.S. to have gotten involved in Iraq, and most now want to see troops brought home quickly from Afghanistan. Support for the military action in Libya peaked at 20 percent.

Americans are also in a mood to dramatically reduce our security guarantees for other nations. Less than half (49 percent) believe the U.S. should remain in its bedrock military alliance, NATO. Out of 54 countries with which Washington has signed mutual-defense treaty obligations, plus two others (Israel and Mexico) that receive our implicit backing, a majority of Americans supports defending just 12. Countries that don’t reach the 50 percent threshold include our oldest ally, France, along with Japan, Poland, and Denmark. The only four countries that 60 percent of Americans are willing to defend are Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel.

These findings highlight the central 21st-century gap between the citizenry and its political class. Three out of four Americans believe U.S. troops should never be deployed for military action overseas unless vital national security interests are at stake. Yet the last several presidents have adopted far less restrictive criteria for sending troops abroad. The military is often dispatched for humanitarian purposes or in the belief that the U.S. should police the world, but only 11 percent of voters believe Uncle Sam should play global cop.

Harming the poorest during a food price hike

Filed under: Economics, Food, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:54

The Economist on the least effective ways of dealing with rising food prices:

Although the weather is the proximate cause of the price rises, governments are making matters worse. Look at America’s biofuels policy. By ensuring that a third of the country’s maize is turned into ethanol and fed to cars, it has driven up grain prices and made them more volatile by reducing stocks. At the start of this year America scrapped the subsidy for ethanol, and abolished the tariff on imports of the stuff — steps in the right direction. But a certain amount of ethanol still has to be blended with petrol by law. That keeps prices high.

Bad policies in America are encouraging bad policies elsewhere. Higher prices have spooked importing and exporting countries alike, causing them to turn away from volatile world markets and seek to insulate themselves. Between 2007 and 2011, 33 countries imposed export restrictions on food. Agriculture accounts for less than 10% of world trade, but more than two-thirds of the cost of all border distortions.

[. . .]

Farm protection is like a weed: it grows everywhere and seems impossible to eradicate. This newspaper has been making the case against it since 1843, when we were founded to oppose Britain’s protectionist Corn Laws. Sadly we seem to have made too little progress. At the moment governments are making farming less efficient than it should be. They are increasing poverty. Their policies are otiose, since there are better ways to help the poor, such as direct cash transfers. And they are counterproductive, because they exacerbate the problems they seek to solve.

The chilling of free speech: corporate defamation suits

Filed under: Australia, Business, Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

An interesting article in the Toronto Star looks at the idea of reducing the ability of corporations to launch SLAPP lawsuits against private citizens:

Fed up with suits like this (sometimes called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs), Australia changed its laws to prevent most corporations from being able to sue for defamation. Canada’s provinces should do the same.

Canada is no stranger to SLAPPs. For example, when Mark Prince created a website inviting people to describe their customer service experiences with Future Shop, he was threatened with a defamation suit. On the advice of a lawyer, Prince shut the site down. It wasn’t that what he’d done was necessarily defamation, but it would simply have cost too much to defend himself.

Cases like this highlight the fact that defamation is easy to allege and hard to defend. Those who claim to have been defamed need only prove that the defendant published something about them to at least one other person, and that a reasonable person would think less of them as a result. Plaintiffs do not have to prove they suffered any actual loss to their reputation, or that the statement was false. Instead much of the burden falls to defendants to prove a defence, such as that the statement was true.

As a result, most people will retract or apologize, even if a statement is true, rather than spend a small fortune defending their right to say it. This chilling effect doesn’t only affect individuals; the news media’s publishing decisions are also influenced by defamation law.

H/T to Bob Tarantino for the link:

Volokh: When you reward certain kinds of behaviour, you get more of it

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:52

The context here is the various arms of the US government scrambling to condemn the alleged maker of the alleged film Innocence of Muslims. Eugene Volokh explains that this is actually inviting further demands for “satisfaction” on the part of the offended:

In recent days, I’ve heard various people calling for punishing the maker of Innocence of Muslims, and more broadly for suppressing such speech. During the Terry Jones planned Koran-burning controversy, I heard similar calls. Such expression leads to the deaths of people, including Americans. It worsens our relations with important foreign countries. It’s intended to stir up trouble. And it’s hardly high art, or thoughtful political arguments. It’s not like it’s Satanic Verses, or even South Park or Life of Brian. Why not shut it down, and punish those who engage in it (of course, while keeping Satanic Verses and the like protected)?

I think there are many reasons to resist such calls, but in this post I want to focus on one: I think such suppression would likely lead to more riots and more deaths, not less. Here’s why.

Behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated. (Relatedly, “once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.”) Say that the murders in Libya lead us to pass a law banning some kinds of speech that Muslims find offensive or blasphemous, or reinterpreting our First Amendment rules to make it possible to punish such speech under some existing law.

What then will extremist Muslims see? They killed several Americans (maybe itself a plus from their view). In exchange, they’ve gotten America to submit to their will. And on top of that, they’ve gotten back at blasphemers, and deter future blasphemy. A triple victory.

Would this (a) satisfy them that now America is trying to prevent blasphemy, so there’s no reason to kill over the next offensive incident, or (b) make them want more such victories? My money would be on (b).

Vikings amass penalties when they should be amassing points

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:42

Follow-up post to yesterday’s Twitter-heavy reaction to another winnable game that the Vikings somehow managed to find a way to lose.

(more…)

September 16, 2012

Vikings lose to Indianapolis 23-20

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 17:19

The lack of a deep receiving threat was the dog that didn’t bark in Minnesota’s road loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. Percy Harvin put in a great effort in a losing cause, and (at least statistically: 27 of 35 for 245 yds, 2TDs and a 114.6 passer rating) Christian Ponder did more than enough to win, but few teams can win on the road when you give up a hundred yards in penalties — most of them stupid, avoidable penalties. The score at the halfway point was 17-6, and if anything that flattered the Vikings.

(more…)

Reporting on “battleships”, “tanks”, and other military matters

Filed under: Media, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:17

Strategy Page on the regularly displayed woeful ignorance of military technology in media reporting:

On September 6th at the U.S. Democratic Party convention a tribute to military veterans featured a retired admiral giving a speech while behind him was projected an impressive image of four warships coming towards the audience. What most people viewing this scene did not realize was that the ships on that screen were Russian, not American. Such an error should not have been a surprise.

This sort of facile military reporting and media presentation of the military has become increasingly common. It goes beyond calling all warships (except carriers and subs) “battleships” (a class of ship that went out of wide use half a century ago) or calling self-propelled artillery (or even infantry fighting vehicles) “tanks” simply because they all have turrets (but very different uses). The bad reporting extends to many other basic items of equipment, training, leadership, tactics and casualties.

It all started back in the 1970s, when conscription in the United States ended and the many World War II veterans in journalism, public affairs and advertising (all of whom help out at major political events) began to retire. The end of conscription meant new journalists were much less likely to have any knowledge of military affairs. It became increasingly easy to make stupid, and embarrassing, mistakes.

The other side of the Philip Roth/Wikipedia spat

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:53

I admit that I didn’t follow this story when it got (for a literary spat) saturation coverage in various media outlets. Here (speaking in a private capacity and not as an official Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson) is Oliver, and he’s got a bit of refuting to do:

First, this is not a fundamental flaw in Wikipedia’s central precepts — this is one author and his agents being unable to navigate the internet and/or report the truth with any degree of accuracy. This is our attempt to make our information not only accurate, but verifiable — to ensure that readers have a hope in hell of actually checking the accuracy of our information. This is not achieved by enabling subjects to become the oracles of truth for any article that mentions them, or telling readers “we know it’s accurate because Philip Roth said so, and you’ll just have to trust us on that”. We don’t want readers to trust us. We want readers to think and be able to do their own research.

Second, maybe (although I doubt it) we need to have a frank debate over how we handle primary and secondary sourcing. But for all of the reasons explained above, Philip Roth and the Editorial of Azkaban is a terrible poster boy for such a debate.

Third: people should perhaps start having a debate about the way authors are treated in “proper” sources. The New Yorker, the Guardian, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times — all respected bodies. And all, without being able and/or willing to do their own research, happily published or republished Roth’s assertions. We rely on these organisations for reporting what our politicians do, what our armed forces do, how entities with the power of life and death over humanity are accountable to the people. And they happily gulp down the glorified press releases of anyone who offers to let them touch his Pulitzer.

There’s also a follow-up post providing more information and explanation.

Benghazi was a symptom of a deeper problem

Filed under: Africa, Bureaucracy, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:06

Mark Steyn almost forgets the humour in this week’s column:

So, on a highly symbolic date, mobs storm American diplomatic facilities and drag the corpse of a U.S. ambassador through the streets. Then the president flies to Vegas for a fundraiser. No, no, a novelist would say; that’s too pat, too neat in its symbolic contrast. Make it Cleveland, or Des Moines.

The president is surrounded by delirious fanbois and fangurls screaming “We love you,” too drunk on his celebrity to understand this is the first photo-op in the aftermath of a national humiliation. No, no, a filmmaker would say; too crass, too blunt. Make them sober, middle-aged midwesterners, shocked at first, but then quiet and respectful.

The president is too lazy and cocksure to have learned any prepared remarks or mastered the appropriate tone, notwithstanding that a government that spends more money than any government in the history of the planet has ever spent can surely provide him with both a speechwriting team and a quiet corner on his private wide-bodied jet to consider what might be fitting for the occasion. So instead he sloughs off the words, bloodless and unfelt: “And obviously our hearts are broken…” Yeah, it’s totally obvious.

And he’s even more drunk on his celebrity than the fanbois, so in his slapdashery he winds up comparing the sacrifice of a diplomat lynched by a pack of savages with the enthusiasm of his own campaign bobbysoxers. No, no, says the Broadway director; that’s too crude, too ham-fisted. How about the crowd is cheering and distracted, but he’s the president, he understands the gravity of the hour, and he’s the greatest orator of his generation, so he’s thought about what he’s going to say, and it takes a few moments but his words are so moving that they still the cheers of the fanbois, and at the end there’s complete silence and a few muffled sobs, and even in party-town they understand the sacrifice and loss of their compatriots on the other side of the world.

But no, that would be an utterly fantastical America. In the real America, the president is too busy to attend the security briefing on the morning after a national debacle, but he does have time to do Letterman and appear on a hip-hop radio show hosted by “The Pimp with a Limp.”

Nebraska: same penalty for manslaughter and for operating a business without a license

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

Nebraska sure is harsh on people who operate unlicensed businesses. Or they’re really soft on those who commit manslaughter:

The libertarian public-interest law firm Institute for Justice reports on one of the most insane, inane, and profane prosecutions in all-time memory.

Karen Hough is a long-time practitioner of “equine massage,” which supposedly is beneficial in all sorts of ways to the animals in question.

[. . .]

A few weeks later, she received a letter from Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services ordering her to “cease and desist” from the “unlicensed practice of veterinary medicine.” In Nebraska, continuing to operate a business without a license after getting a cease and desist letter is a Class III felony. So Karen could face up to 20 years in prison and pay a $25,000 fine. By comparison, that’s the same penalty for manslaughter in the Cornhusker State.

Nebraska isn’t a place that shows up in the news very often: I’ve posted nearly 5,000 entries here at the blog, and this is the first time I’ve needed to tag anything “Nebraska”.

September 15, 2012

Gary Johnson on why both Obama and Romney are wrong on foreign policy

Filed under: Government, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate, says both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have it wrong with their respective approaches to foreign policy:

Foreign policy is supposed to make us safer, not get Americans killed and bankrupt us. Yet, even as we mourn the loss of four Americans in Libya and watch the Middle East ignite with anti-American fervor, our leaders don’t get it.

In one corner, we have the U.S. apologists warning that — after the murders in Libya and the attack on our embassy in Cairo — we must be careful not to say or do anything that might hurt someone’s feelings. In the other corner, we have the chest-thumpers demanding that we find somebody to shoot — and shoot them.

I have a better idea: Stop trying to manipulate and manage history on the other side of the globe and then being shocked when things don’t turn out the way we wanted. As far as what we do right now in response to the tragic events of this week, it’s actually pretty simple. Get our folks out of places they don’t need to be — and out of harm’s way — and cut off every dime of U.S. tax dollars we are sending to clearly ungrateful regimes.

The amazing time-travel effects of sequestration

Filed under: Government, Media, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:35

Nick Gillespie tells us to expect a lot more stories attributing current troubles to future spending cuts:

Now that the White House has released its massive sequestration report detailing the $1.2 trillion in possible cuts to future spending over the next 10 years, expect to read more headlines like the following from Buzzfeed:

You got that implication, kemo sabe?

Possible future trims in spending have something to do with what’s going in the Middle East right now. Not that embassies are under attack now because of American foreign policy or world events or rotten security or whatever. Or that we can’t defend our citizens and diplomatic corps right now despite record-high levels of spending on defense and military operations for most of the 21st century.

No, the real bad news is coming if and when the United States stops its 12-year long spending spree that has all but killed any chance of recovery and piled on the debt like Dagwood Bumstead loading cold cuts onto a sandwich roll.

[. . .]

This much is true: The planned cuts are across-the-board to particular programs including everything from defense to Medicare to education to you name it (that was the point, to share the costs).

And this much is complete bullshit: “sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions.”

In fact, the cuts for 2013 amount to maybe a whopping $120 billion in an annual budget that is likely to run about $3.8 trillion. Out of the $120 billion, about $50 billion will come out of military budget that will be well north of $650 billion, including war funding.

Malaysia working on its “homosexual problem”

Filed under: Asia, Liberty, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:43

From the Guardian:

The Malaysian government has begun holding seminars aiming to help teachers and parents spot signs of homosexuality in children, underscoring a rise in religious conservatism in the country.

So far, the Teachers Foundation of Malaysia has organised 10 seminars across the country. Attendance at the last event on Wednesday reached 1,500 people, a spokesman for the organisation said.

“It is a multi-religious and multicultural [event], after all, all religions are basically against that type of behaviour,” said the official.

The federal government said in March that it is working to curb the “problem” of homosexuality, especially among Muslims who make up over 60% of Malaysia’s population of 29 million people.

According to a handout issued at a recent seminar, signs of homosexuality in boys may include preferences for tight, light-coloured clothes and large handbags, local media reported.

[. . .]

Official intolerance of gay people has been on the rise. Last year, despite widespread criticism, the east coast state of Terengganu set up a camp for “effeminate” boys to show them how to become men.

H/T to Christopher Taylor for the link.

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