@Sluggo

I might take you up on that, actually, depending on the shipping cost. Get in touch with me...logomancer@gBISHOPmail.com (remove clergyman from address).

Given the crap materials they make keyboards out of these days, I am hardly surprised by this. This is as good an argument for heavy typers to use a Model M Keyboard as I've ever heard. If someone manages to wear one of those out, I will be truly impressed.

I was born in WV (Morgantown, which my friend from McDowell County jokes is actually western PA). My mom's family lives in Grafton. Of the many holidays I've spent in that town, this is probably the first art exhibit I've heard going there. The rest of the town is a dump; of course, one could say that for many WV boom towns. I counted myself lucky to have gotten out of that state when I did.

That said, the art show looks interesting.

Regarding my last post: I don't know anything about the particulars of any of those hats -- I'm not Jewish, Muslim, Druze or Zoroastrian. For more info, search engines are your friend.

Why don't the men have to cover their heads?

You mean, like the kippa (aka yarmulke)?

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

"According to the Shulchan Aruch, a code of Jewish law, men are required to cover their heads and should not walk more than four cubits without a hat. Wearing a kippa is described as 'honoring God'."

Muslims, Druze, and Zoroastrians have similar headgear for men (with varying degrees of requirement).

Sorry I'm late, someone froze the comment thread while they got rid of people.

Now that I'm here...what the fuck are you people doing? You take money from Microsoft, and then, when people complain, you close comments and post a patronizing blurb about BB's advertising policies that sound like what a spin doctor would produce to placate the "mob". This is unconscionable, and it makes me wonder what has happened the blog I know and love.

Yes, I'm angry. Very angry. After all the anti-DRM screeds, after advocating open source and free culture, you take money from a corporation that has done more to promote DRM and suppress open source, free culture, and innovation than any other force on the planet; indeed, I am astounded someone on here actually used "Microsoft" and "compete" in the same sentence with a straight face. Yes, they're better than companies like Blackwater, but that's like saying they're less authoritarian then Franco.

It's a blatant conflict of interest; we don't have articles on HP or Honda very often, but Microsoft is a company that comes up often, usually in a bad context. You say you're editorially independent, but we'd expect you to say that; if you weren't, what else would you say? "Yes, we're corporate shills and ads influence our editorial decisions" doesn't exactly encourage readership, does it? Nor, for that matter, do "explanations" that look like they were written by some PR drone.

You say that, by nature of the online format, you're much more independent than TV, radio, or print media. To this, I would say that you only have to look at what happened to Jeff Gerstmann to see how false that claim is. While working for Gamespot, he panned a game for which its publisher bought a major ad campaign on the site. The publisher got pissed, and Jeff was fired right before last Thanksgiving, after all the reviews were more or less wrapped up for the year. This kind of advertiser influence is endemic in much of the print media for video games and for many video game sites, especially those that do reviews.

You'll forgive me if I look upon some of the articles and writers here with more suspicion than I used to -- mainly because I don't know where you all stand anymore. Dropping the campaign and apologizing for making a bad call and insulting your readers would do a lot to show your good faith, but I'm not holding my breath.

Argh. I leave the computer for 6 hours, and things go to shit...

I may have been hasty in calling you all sellouts when the Honda thing came up, but come on...Microsoft? You knew people were going to have a problem with that, even before you nuked the comment thread. What the hell's going on over there at BoingBoing?

Takuan: The TSA thing royally sucks, and I hope it's just someone who didn't get the memo. Honestly, TSA's the main reason I seldom fly. My problem is, none of the presidential candidates have shown a willingness to fix (to say nothing of dismantling) TSA, or any of the other broken security apparatus. That makes me think this is going to be in place for a long while.

As for FISA -- I yelled at my senators about it yesterday, who gave me some bullshit about "telecoms acting in good faith while protecting America". Morons. But my Congressman's a decent guy, so maybe he'll oppose merging the bills in conference.

Teresa@140: Honda is a big corporation. And it's common practice for big corporations to spend a little money on ad campaigns saying they're fixing their problems rather than spend a lot of money actually fixing their problems.

So yeah, I find it highly unlikely that Honda means well by this.

I am pleased that the car companies are making progress; however, they should have been making this progress 35 years ago, when they realized they were in trouble. Instead, they tried to lobby their way out of the problem. Now we face a climate crisis, and most of them are still trying to lobby their way out of the problem!

So yeah, I'm a bit annoyed at car companies.

Arkizzle@50: Don't forget the British Charity Commission, which also rejected Co$ as a religion.

GFPLUX: Anonymous has stated that their target is the Church, not the belief system:

http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology/Messages_from_Anonymous#A_message_to_the_followers_of_Scientology_.286.29

For instance, there's a group called Free Zone that practices much of Scientology's beliefs, but doesn't charge anything:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Zone_(Scientology)

However, Anonymous has left them alone.

You asked, Teresa, so I'll answer:

I don't like ad campaigns like Honda's because of its insidiousness. They sponsor specific content on this site because they're interested in softening criticism about their products. And on some sites I've seen sell out in the past, it's worked.

What really made me upset was that it was done here. Not to inflate anyone's ego, but I look up to most of the BB staff (and the others are left out only because I'm not really familiar with them). I don't see the ads most of the time, and this ad campaign felt like a betrayal. Also, at the time, I was watching the one Democratic senator from my state betray me on the FISA bill, so the double whammy was a bit hard to take.

I'm sorry if I hurt people's feelings.

Teresa@118: How DARE you! I use an MP3 player to tell me how to breathe, thank you very much! [/snark]

That said, I will admit that I was a bit hasty in saying you all were tainted. My thinking on that comment was less than clear.

But campaigns like this still make me wary. And if this deal with Honda isn't a "major ad campaign", what is?

As for the disemvowelling -- well, I walked right into that one. But calling people like me names for voicing concerns about an ad campaign that received little explanation is childish. If Mark had said something to the effect of, "before anyone gets upset, this isn't going to affect anything we post or not post here", I would have been satisfied with that. Instead, there was silence.

Don't get me wrong, I like BB and its writers. But things like this ought to be handled better.

Yeah, this isn't over yet. Call your congresscritter and ask them to support the RESTORE Act.

gr wth wht thrs hv sd n tht ths wll hv chllng ffct n BngBng. t dsn't mttr f Hnd ddn't st ny dtrl gdlns r nt -- bcs Hnd pd thm, th dtrs wll fl, ncnscsly r thrws, blgtd t cnsr thmslvs whn Hnd's ntrsts r thrtnd. Wll w s strs syng crs rn't rlly tht bd fr th nvrnmnt? Will Teresa start disemvoweling anti-Honda comments now?t's hrd t sy wht frm ths nw nflnc wll tk, bt ths bth sm t b plsbl n ths nw clmt.

Ths s cmmnty -- nt jst bcs f th cmmntrs, bt ls bcs sm f s prvd thm wth ntrstng lnks nd cntnt. Wht wll hppn t sm f tht sr-sbmttd cntnt nw tht ths dl s n plc? mgn nythng tht cld b prcvd s hrtng Hnd wll fnd tslf tht mch clsr t th cttng rm flr. f tht hppns, th cmmnty wll sffr.

d fl lk cmmdty -- pr f ys wth wllt. nd tht's bd thng, bcs thght th dtrs hr hd mr rspct fr thr rdrs thn tht. Gss ws wrng.

Mrk, Jl, Xn, Cry -- cngrtltns, y'v ll jst bcm sllts. cngrtlt y n hldng t fr ths lng. Bt nw y r tntd n my ys.

Congratulations!

I like Fluxx. It's a fun, light game for when you don't have enough time or brainpower for something else. However, I only own the original, and I wanna get my hands on the Eco and Zombie variants (which have interesting mechanics).

Andy makes great games, Chrononauts and the Icehouse system being my personal favorites. My biggest complaint is that Andy Looney seems to be a one-trick pony these days. All he announces for new games are variants of Fluxx. Although there might be some hope that he's going to put something original out:

http://www.wunderland.com/WhatsOld/2008/WN.01.24.08.html

After he talks about Martian Fluxx, he mentions another "secret project". Of course, this could turn out to be another Fluxx variant, but hey, Andy could surprise us...

Anyway, for people looking for a place to buy Fluxx, try 1) your local games store, and 2) the Looney Labs online store at http://www.looneylabs.com/OurStores/LooneyLabs.html .

Full disclosure: I am a demo person for Looney Labs, though I am currently inactive. The above was not approved by Looney Labs, nor am I a representative of them.

Wow. That is one well-designed laptop. I'm kicking myself now for not getting one when I had the chance. Here's hoping there's another round of this sometime. Not that I'm too hopeful...they prolly only did this to get rid of the laptops with the AES module that they'd have trouble exporting.

*sigh*

This is outrageous! Don't the cops have better things to do? I seem to recall that NYC has things like murders and robberies and such. Y'know, real crime.

Also, I'm no lawyer, but...if the cops place these decoy purses to get felony collars, isn't that entrapment?

More info on this here:

http://www.massively.com/2007/12/11/was-cory-linden-fired-or-did-he-quit/

From the statements made, it sounds like Cory got fired. There could be any number of reasons for this -- SL's changing, and not necessarily for the better.

...which necessarily involves the right to transfer information that's been generated regarding their online life.

Talk of interoperability? Not bloody likely at a Microsoft-funded conference...

OK, so here's what I've noticed:

The US rejects the UN as being contrary to national sovereignty....unless, of course, we want to ram something down someone's throat (ie. WTO, WIPO, etc.).

Instead of negotiating with countries for their natural resources, or to defuse a potentially dangerous situation, the US goes to war with them instead (ie. Iraq, Iran, sabre-rattling on N. Korea). In some cases, like Venezuela, the US tries engineering a coup instead.

Finally, the US has just now acknowledged that it can kidnap citizens of other countries with impunity, despite a formal process for requesting their extradition.

So...why does the US have a State Department anymore? It seems like they've all but abandoned diplomacy as a means of policy change. I haven't seen Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell doing anything to advance the cause of diplomacy (except when it's to put a multilateral face on a US-prosecuted war). So why even bother? To fool other countries into thinking the US is still committed to diplomacy? You'd have to be a complete moron of a world leader to believe that the US wants to negotiate with countries in good faith.

The US is an empire. The sooner they admit to that, the better.

PS to Mods: Would it be possible to get HTML list tags (ul, ol, li) on the approved list?

As if I didn't have enough reasons to hate IGE and their gilsellers...

Those of us on Alla need to hit them HARD with their links to IGE. Also somepage.com, who also sells ad space to IGE.

Heh...yeah, the Roanoke Times is always good for a laugh. Or fish wrap.