Meetings, Usual Life Stuff, News

[tcpip]

Tomorrow evening I am speaking at the Melbourne Existentialist Society on "Autonomy and the Phenomenology of Nature and Property", which relates to an interest some fifteen years old in my persective; developing a political and economic outlook to existentialism. Next week (same location, same time) is the Melbourne Atheist Society, with Russell Blackford speaking on "Religious Vilification and Freedom of Speech", on which I've already stated my point-of-view in various forums (simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same).

Work has mainly consisted of more server hardware builds and Xen installs along with transferring sites and mail to a new server. Jon Oxer is back onboard giving presentations and tutorials at OsCon. Social life has struggled a bit with caseopaya not being the most well critter this week. Played Ars Magica Festival of the Damned courtesy of Michael and ran Stormbringer Rogue Mistress.

Well-paid stupidity: Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments (from begedel). Paid users now can't avoid "ads" in livejournal (just call it 'sponsorship'. Welcome our new (armed) robot overlords in Iraq (from mundens). Russia is getting very serious about claiming the North pole (with some justification I may add). Finally, vale, Dr. Ellis, another hero of the human species.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Russell is a very smart guy, who I'm sure is up on the nuances.

Festival of the Damned is a true classic. I'm quite fond of it. I've run it, and one of the things is it can easily set itself up for the start of a whole campaign theme.

The idea of terrorists training with WoW is hilarious. As a regular player, its true that it requires a high degree of cooperation and coordination -- but its also true that high powered WoW combat is more like synchronised swimming or jazz improvisation than like actual fighting...

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment

At least, a Murdoch newspaper says that's what Zuccato says; I'm waiting for tonight's Mediawatch to see which of those two is the point of failure. (I've never heard of Zuccato before, but going by the rest of the article, I feel pretty safe in suspecting the Oz has misrepresented him here.)

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

Your desire to transform Existentialism into a sociopolitical-economic system is intriguing to me.

[angel80.livejournal.com]

I'm at a loss to know what's going on with LJ. I presume you can still avoid ads by not using the sponsored layouts and/or mood icons and then having your friends page display in your own layout?

There's also some crap going on with Harry Potter and so-called 'child porn'. Apparently in the US the age of consent is 18.

[darviz.livejournal.com]

"(simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same)."

It's been a long time since we used to get into various raves and debates in the early hours at Apocalypse. After reading that, I'm starting to hang out for the old days. lol!

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

Woot! I welcome our supreme robot overlord leaders!

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

tcpip:

simply put: many racial and religious practises and beliefs and the people who espouse them are deserving of ridicule, contempt and even hatred; I encourage and incite others to express the same.

Amen to that.

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Anti-democracy+A+letter+from+Russia/1135223214214