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Timor Troubles, Linux News, Ratty Year
East Timor's President José Ramos-Horta was wounded today in a half-baked coup attempt led by criminal fugative Alfredo Reinhado. If memory serves me correctly this is Ramos-Horta's home where the attack occurred early this morning. Whilst on occassion he has been frustrating to me, I do hold the President in high regard, a friend even. I was very happy when last year he adopted a tax policy I had recommended to him some months prior (I also suggested that he get a second opinion - which evidently he did). José is apparently in a stable condition and I wish him the speediest recovery.
In Linux news there's a cool little exploit which has made sysadmins worldwide run around and patch the problem within hours. Which is an example par excellence of the ability of open source operating systems to find and repair problems. In other Linux news I presented an update last Tuesday at Linux Users Victoria, where Sarah Bond (Microsoft) spoke on their OpenXML standard and Damien Miller (Google) spoke on OpenSSH development. I had just purchased some fencing foils and suggested that they engage in a friendly duel for Yahoo! The gathering was quite polite although critical of Microsoft's previous actions and intentions, but it was friendly. In more trivial news I successfully googlwhacked "dispensationalists" and "ununoctium". But check the brilliant article.
Attended the Year of the Rat celebrations in the city on Sunday with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caseopaya, ser_pounce and hathhalla, which is very appropriate as Rogue Rat will be celebrating his third birthday in a couple of days (that's 90 in human scale). Like most mass entertainment events, the celebrations were loud, crowded an anonymous which is not to my liking. I managed however to find and secure a perfect spot in front of the Chinese Museum in Cohen Place, where the impressive 50+m dragon and assorted friends ventured from. After that made it to what will be my final ever AD&D1e game, running a necessarily modified version of module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
In Linux news there's a cool little exploit which has made sysadmins worldwide run around and patch the problem within hours. Which is an example par excellence of the ability of open source operating systems to find and repair problems. In other Linux news I presented an update last Tuesday at Linux Users Victoria, where Sarah Bond (Microsoft) spoke on their OpenXML standard and Damien Miller (Google) spoke on OpenSSH development. I had just purchased some fencing foils and suggested that they engage in a friendly duel for Yahoo! The gathering was quite polite although critical of Microsoft's previous actions and intentions, but it was friendly. In more trivial news I successfully googlwhacked "dispensationalists" and "ununoctium". But check the brilliant article.
Attended the Year of the Rat celebrations in the city on Sunday with
caseopaya, ser_pounce and hathhalla, which is very appropriate as Rogue Rat will be celebrating his third birthday in a couple of days (that's 90 in human scale). Like most mass entertainment events, the celebrations were loud, crowded an anonymous which is not to my liking. I managed however to find and secure a perfect spot in front of the Chinese Museum in Cohen Place, where the impressive 50+m dragon and assorted friends ventured from. After that made it to what will be my final ever AD&D1e game, running a necessarily modified version of module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
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Why's that then? I'm still extremely fond of first edition.
But I'm also fond of the Basic-Expert-GreenOneWhatEscapesMeChampion?-Master line.
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I've played it to death and am all too painfully aware of its many and numerous problems. I could houserule them or glibly overlook them, as I've done over the past 25 or so years or I could say "No, I'm finished with this. Time to play something else". I'm taking the latter path.
But I'm also fond of the Basic-Expert-GreenOneWhatEscapesMeChampi on?-Master line.
I think you're thinking of Companion. Actually a better game overall, if somewhat reduced in scope. - and don't forget the Immortals.
But as a whole, despite it's high levels of crunch, D&D 3.x is much better than both of these.
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As for GURPS 4e from what I've seen it's OK, but it really suffers from trying to put everything in the one book. At least with 3e 90% of your requirements were catered for in 90% of the text. The latest edition seems to give equal weight to marginal and core instances.
So I'm still sticking to 3e for now.
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That sucks.
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Eep! That's a turn for the worse from earlier reports this afternoon.
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JRH is now in Darwin. I think the stomach location is very bad. Infection is easy. However, the Darwin hospital says:
"He's not fighting for his life but his injuries are extremely serious." They expect a full recovery. Phew!!!
Lucky the Oz military are there with modern technology for war wounds!!!
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The difference in medical facilities between Australia and East Timor is quite astounding. Poor ol' East Timor only has one ambulance for starters.
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In answer to your question, Ramos-Horta used to say he'd much prefer it if East Timor were in the middle of the south pacific, surrounded by other nations of a similar size. Being the small fish with two big fish on either side (Australia and Indonesia) isn't much fun.
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the Australians are doing a much better job helping them out (including you). that's just me being unpatriotic and objective. but it's true!
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(One is certainly allowed, indeed required, to be unpatriotic especially when one is being objective.)
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Oh neither the lack of security nor the fact it took half an hours surprises me at all. What did surprise was there actually was Presidential guards with Ramos-Horta who shot back.
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I don't think I ever played that one, but, I do recall the legendary story of the 120 foot dragon squished inside a 10x10 foot room ;-).
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Well perhaps not so legendary but more real is the fact that the designer of said game, Gary Gygax, did squeeze a red dragon (coming in at 50 feet) in a room barely that size - and in the the third underground level of a complex.
But for some AD&D1e entertainment one cannot go past the Head of Vecna, the Gazebo, or Stupid Monsters.
http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm
http://www.brunchma.com/archives/Forum13/HTML/000133.html
http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm
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Bwahahahahahahaha. Ha.
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What you said
Timor's greatest danger is, however, "the resource curse". Having all that oil and gas makes for a lovely seizable asset. In the words of a recent study: economic characteristics – dependence on primary commodity exports, low average incomes, slow growth, and large diasporas – are all significant and powerful predictors of civil war. Rebellions either have the objective of natural resource predation, or are critically dependent upon natural resource predation in order to pursue other objectives. The would be coup fits the pattern.
It is also a reason to ignore the interests of anyone else (apart from buying off those you need to). It is the most important single reason why Arab/Iranian politics are so fucked, as Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji explains.