why did the coder audition for the supporting role instead of the lead?

She only wanted a bit part.

i want a Magnabuntu tablet

 

Source: SMBC

How Unity for Ubuntu might be marketed, if it weren’t for those humorless folks at Canonical. ;)

beautiful mind

Like Nick, I’d try to take control. But of course, what happens if he comes upon a player with the same strategy?

Nick declares his intent to sabotage both their chances. In a way, he puts Ibrahim in a position where he must choose to split. And the icing on the cake? Nick’s choice.

Big Polluter cover-up

Greg Palast with some great coverage:

Part One

Part Two

Perhaps major oil corporations should be nationalized and all abnormal profits spent on subsidizing sustainable energy alternatives. This would help force the oil industry into major downsizing. Some of the subsidization could be spent countering the structural unemployment that would come as a result.

norway and anders breivik

I think Norway is setting a great example with their handling of the case against Anders Breivik. Imprison him and care for him. This is courageous justice. I have sympathy for, but offer no support to, the Lynch-Mob mentality that wants Breivik to suffer and die as “payment” for his crime.

unhappy halloween

It’s like the Halloween Documents, but by homophobes. They want to embrace and extend the “Latino vote” in order to extinguish gay marriage. And “the blacks”? Well, they’re NOM’s SCO.

image is everything

Apple’s proprietary software as a bell and whistle for a Veblen good. Speaking of that, iPad 3 will be coming out soon! ZOMG!!

three suggestions for Rovio to build their fan base

A promising statement from Mikael Hed at Rovio.

We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. [...] If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow.

I have three suggestions for steps Rovio could take to build their fan base.

One: Release the game engine as copylefted free software. This would allow the free software community to hack and innovate on the engine yet require the community to give those improvements back to Rovio. This could lead to a better engine and even if it doesn’t, it will surely draw more people to the game (the headline itself would be huge, let alone the practical interest it would generate). Rovio would still be free to release their own proprietary version of the engine if they made innovations they didn’t want to share. Further, they could sell exceptions to the copyleft requirements if third parties wanted to use the engine in another application and release it as proprietary software.

Two: Apply a CC BY-NC license to the game’s skins and related artwork with proactive demands for attribution. The Non-Commercial restriction would work well alongside restrictive trademarks to protect certain revenue streams. If someone tried to sell products (e.g. other game versions or stuffed toys) that used the copyrighted works without permission, Rovio could take legal action but fans would be free to remix and display the artwork for non-commercial purposes. This could lead to Angry Birds artwork being seen by more people and therefore, generate more interest in the game. This is not to say that Rovio is actively pursuing fans who do amateur remixing, but why not explicitly promote it by changing the copyright terms?

Three: Authorize/endorse an official version of Angry Birds built by fans. Encourage fans to use the above openness to build new levels. Hold a contest and pick the top levels that make it into Angry Birds Fanatics. Also, a contest could also be held to develop new birds. Again, a contest where Rovio determines the best fan-made bird that makes it into the official version. Such steps would surely generate an even larger fan base.

Any other ideas?

legalizing insider trading & the Kim Schmitz case

I tend to agree with economists who favor legalizing insider trading and think the law is mistaken to classify insider trading as a subset of securities fraud.

For instance, take the charges against Kim Schmitz (known as Kim Dotcom now). Let’s say Schmitz did have every intention/possibility of investing 50 million euros in Letsbuyit.com. If he let some know in advance (“insiders”) and they got a jump on other buyers, where’s the harm in that? Like it or not, that’s what the stock market is; a place where those who have the most accurate information the soonest, tend to win. However, Schmitz reportedly had no means/intent to invest yet reportedly pulled in enormous personal gain using his relatively small original stake ($375,000) and others he gave false information to. If so, then that’s fraud; yet he was found guilty of “insider trading” despite not having any inside information to give.

what do taxidermists like to do on sunny days?

Some tanning.