Space Sims

It’s been a long while since I’ve last played X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Elite, Wing Commander, Privateer, Freespace et al. and I’ve missed the genre.
After a little hunting around I’ve found two space sims which look very worth exploring (Allthough, unfortunately, none is multiplayer as far as I can see…):

X3: Reunion is a huge, lovely looking, non-linear Elite replacement. Unfortunately it’s slow, trading is huge and complex and there isn’t much gameplay to keep you going if you want a storyline to follow. The pace is slow, but the detail and possibilities are breathtaking.

DarkStar One is more based on making your money through blowing things up whilst following missions. Trading is an option, but it’s fortunately simple. The graphics are slightly less beautiful but still at times awesome, but there’s apparantly a sameness to the galaxies and trading posts which marrs what would be a top space shoot-em-up.

Both look very worth playing though.

Hacker threatened to extradite

Gary McKinnen, a Scot who’s exploits put Kevin Mitnick to shame, allegedly has hacked into 97 US military and NASA computers. He’s in England fighting extradition, probably because he quite sanely doesn’t want to be tried as a terrorist. The US is using threatening strong-arm tactics to get him to not fight the extradition to the US, such as leaning on the UK to revoke his rights should he eventually be extradited. A nasty picture of what both the US and the UK are all about nowadays.

Driving Licence points have one winner: Insurance companies

Hardly surprising, but putting points on a person’s licence isn’t going to stop them speeding. Or at least, not the 3.7 million motorists in this study. It increased the insurance company’s profits by around $36 million, as they charge more insurance fees if you get points.
The way to stop drivers from repeat speeding offences, is to give them a court probation.

Cure for Cancer, Herpes

NYU School of Medicine researchers report in a new study that they have isolated a new version of a herpesvirus that kills cancer cells but spares normal tissue.

In animal studies, the new version dramatically reduced the size of human prostate cancer tumors grown in mice. Moreover, it completely eradicated the tumor mass in some of the animals, and it appears not to harm normal tissue.

“We took a crippled virus and essentially made it into a more effective killer of cancer cells,” says Ian Mohr, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Microbiology at NYU School of Medicine, who led the research and is an author of the study. “But we’ve only demonstrated this in mice. Clearly the next step is to see whether this more potent anti-tumor virus works in other animal models.”

Anti Anti Smoking Activism continues

This guy has built a 90 seat pub extension to his house, where his mates and family can come in, drink a pint and not worry about those anal retentive anti-smokers. Despite a ban on pub smoking in Wales, he gets away with it because it’s not really a pub. Everything in his place is free – he’s giving it away, and it’s not really a place for the general public. This is a direct stance against the anti-smoking nazi’s.

SpaceX Falcon 1 liftoff

The 2 stage rocket is designed to compete with all current operators of satellite launch platforms and be 10 times cheaper than them. There is not so much emphasis on bringing people into space, making this probably commercially more viable. Their first launch was a flop, so they were happy that this launch lasted untill 200 miles (in around 4.5 minutes!) before telemetry data was cut off due to osscilations at altitude. They expect this problem to be easily solvable and SpaceX was happy enough with the 95% successful flight. YouTube has the videos.

Dutch Electronic Art Festival 07

DEAF07 has as it’s title “Interact or Die!”

It will be held between 10 – 29 April in Rotterdam and consists of workshops, seminars, presentations, exhibitions, etc. The program is impressive, this should be worth a visit.

There is a secondary exhibition linked to it called unDEAF, which invites anyone to participate however they like, which will be unjudged or theme restricted – ie. complete chaos. This will be held between 10-15 April.

Scents improve memory formation

The scientific community knew that scent is closely related to memory, as people can recall events / places with a certain smell when they smell the associated scent easily.
Now, they’ve found out that if you have a task that requires studying, then associate that with a smell and then throw that smell at you during deep sleep, you will have remembered what you studied very much better than if you hadn’t used the smells.
Interestingly this doesn’t work if you replay the smell during REM sleep, as the hippocampus isn’t activated, making researchers think that REM sleep accounts for absorbion of activity and emotive memory.

Is the US IRS illegal?

Zathur thought this one out for us:

People will have to do their own research. I just googled to get some topics out. Not saying that I support any of the topics discussed, I’m PRO making people think about society and issues around them and not to take stuff for granted.

IRS is illegal in US
The well researched and documented legal allegations by citizens comprising what has become known as the “tax honesty movement” include the following:
1) In 1913, the 16th Amendment (the “income tax” Amendment) was fraudulently and illegally declared to be ratified by a lame-duck Secretary of State just days before leaving office;
2) There is NO LAW that requires most Americans to file a tax return, pay the federal income tax or have the tax withheld from their earnings;
3) People who file a Form 1040 “voluntarily” waive their 5th Amendment right not to bear witness against themselves;
4) The IRS routinely violates citizens’ 4th Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure, by failing to properly obtain warrants issued by a court upon probable cause and supported by oath and affirmation; and
5) The IRS, as standard operating procedure, routinely and grossly violates citizens’ due process rights in its administrative procedures and operates far outside the boundaries of U.S. law.
A must see film/documentary then is: Aaron Russo’s America – From Freedom to Fascism (the interview with the director of IRS is really funny)

http://infowars.net/articles/October2006/251006Russo.htm

Using Pension Funds to pay of Foreign Debt or losing the money all together

i.e. privatization of Pension funds… a fucking mess
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/site_packages/ss_privatization/050115memo_experiments.html

For u non-Hubbert peak oil theorists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Corporation as a Psycopath

My discussion was not how free market economy is bad, the opposite, free market economy stimulates growth and competition….

Its just that the concept of a “corporation” (not a company or business, no a corporation is a company which is owned by private investors) is just so wrong and does not fit in the free market economy….

How is it that in a corporation
a) Priority number one (over all other rules/regulations/laws) investors MUST get paid out and the corporations must return investment to them
b) Investors can never directly be sewed. The corporation can be sewed i.e. NO ONE IS LIABLE!
c) Etc, etc, etc

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2004/08/the_corporation.html

A must see film/documenta4ry then is: The Corporation – a film by Mark achbar, Jennifer Abbot & Joel Bakan

Lobbying in the Economy

The concept of the commercial sector pushing your government decision making is just plain wrong. Though it is a necessity in modern society…..

Pillaging IRAQ

How contractors are pillaging iraq….. look for more companies who just rip out the money outta iraq…

“Halliburton Co. and other U.S. contractors are being paid at least $1.9 billion from Iraqi funds under an arrangement set by the U.S.-led occupation authority, according to a review of documents and interviews with government agencies, companies and auditors.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37822-2004Aug3.html

Want to read “Freedom” Press in South America?

Want to know the shit that happens in S.America? The absolute mess that’s left behind by everyone and the constant fingerpointing and political farce? How the DEA/FBI/CIA leave a trail of chaos and mess behind?

Good place to keep track of the mess in Mexico now?

www.narconews.com – The Freedom Press of S.America

Impeach Bush!

lol, kk thx bye bbq

http://infowars.net/articles/december2006/051206Impeachment.htm

IMF: Corrupt Piece of Junk, how to rape and pillage ur economy

Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies. Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.

The Globalizer Who Came In From the Cold Joe Stiglitz: Today's Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics