stargeek
Black Ships and SamuraiBlack Ships and SamuraiBlack Ships and Samurai 04/09/2004 04:08 PM Black Ships and Samurai :: an on-line exhibit, using primary sources to document a little-known but dramatic encounter betwen the US and Japan in the summer of 1853. This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)Black Ships and SamuraiGrok Headline matches for Black Ships and SamuraiThe Last SamuraiThe Last Samurai 12/07/2003 03:47 AM imdb.com/title/tt0325710 Twilight SamuraiTwilight Samurai 03/19/2005 02:50 AM Twilight Samurai on DVD recommended. It's a beautiful film to watch although I thought the storyline was a bit too simple. It has only two fighting scenes with little bloodshed. The first fighting scene, which takes place by a stream, was more enjoyable than the second which was just two samurais fumbling around inside a dark house. A Samurai With StyleA Samurai With Style 03/17/2005 03:16 AM Square Enix's cartoon-shaded samurai RPG is slickly rendered, but the gameplay isn't nearly as polished. Chris Kohler reviews Musashi: Samurai Legend. Samurai epic is a cut aboveSamurai epic is a cut above 07/13/2004 05:12 AM Onimusha 3: Demon Siege is a good old-fashioned hack'n'slash video game adventure. Samurai FictionSamurai Fiction 04/17/2005 06:15 AM After an unusually busy Saturday morning, putting out a fire related to load balancing for a client and trying out an integration test for a milestone due Monday, I watched Samurai Fiction. Boy, what a stupid boring movie. It's only enjoyable spot was the aging ninja. SAMURAI WARRIORS (Xbox)SAMURAI WARRIORS (Xbox) 07/16/2004 10:27 PM Cinescape.com - Fri Jul 16, 04:27 pm GMT Slice Your Own Samurai AdventureSlice Your Own Samurai Adventure 07/22/2004 06:17 AM Way of the Samurai 2 puts you in control of your own samurai movie, with nonlinear gameplay and divergent story paths. But repetitive action and confusing goals hurt the overall experience. By Chris Kohler. Reiner Knizia's Samurai 1.5.3Reiner Knizia's Samurai 1.5.3 12/04/2003 04:45 PM A turn-based strategy game of balance and conquest. Sony's Sudden SamuraiSony's Sudden Samurai 03/14/2005 04:01 PM Business Week’s opinion about what Sir Howard needs to do to fix the company… “It wasn’t as far-fetched as, say, a geeky high school student morphing overnight into your web-spinning, friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. But the Mar. 7 announcement that Sir Howard Stringer would take over management control of Sony (SNE), a $68 billion consumer-electronics and entertainment colossus, came pretty close to defying belief in Japan. Sure, Sony is a much-diminished force. But was it so… Direct and Related Links for 'Sony’s Sudden Samurai' Sci-fi samurai lacks styleSci-fi samurai lacks style 05/04/2004 07:51 AM The slashfest Seven Samurai 20XX is a pale reflection of the classic film is it based on. Sci-fi samurai game lacks styleSci-fi samurai game lacks style 04/30/2004 04:57 AM BBC Apr 30 2004 8:58AM GMT Samurai sword attacker sentencedSamurai sword attacker sentenced 07/16/2004 06:30 AM A 17-year-old who admitted killing his father with two Samurai swords is given five years in detention. Scythe Samurai Intel-AMD HSF ReviewScythe Samurai Intel-AMD HSF Review 06/01/2004 02:08 PM The Last Samurai and the Japanese code
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 No one who has read The Boondocks has a neutral opinion about its writer, Aaron McGruder. You either love him or hate him, or vacillate between the two extremes. The twenty-something radical leftie is working on a Simpsons-style animated series that will air, ironically, on Fox, probably next year, and as the New Yorker reported last month, he's managed to outrage almost everyone of every political stripe, including other cartoonists who say that he's gotten lazy (the strip is now drawn by Jennifer Seng, though McGruder still does the writing), and that he's relentless to the point of being tedious and unfunny. He is the most banned cartoonist in history, with many of the 300+ papers carrying the strip having cut it at one time or another. But as I think the above strip from last week shows, McGruder's biting wit has lost none of its edge, and demonstrates a fearlessness that goes beyond even what Doonsbury and Bloom County achieved. |
 If
you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I'm
opposed to unregulated 'free' trade, very worried about the
extraterritoriality of the WTO, NAFTA, Davos and other corporatist
captives, strongly opposed to domestic corporations 'offshoring' jobs,
using influence with the Bush regime and other right-wing governments
to circumvent social and environmental laws and responsibilities, and
a
great believer in taking the pledge to buy local, and in community
self-sufficiency.At the same time, I'm a strong supporter of the UN and other multi-lateral NGOs, and I believe that we each have a responsibility for the well-being of all the people and creatures of this world. Some readers have said this view is inconsistent, and I wasn't quite sure how to respond to such charges. Fortunately, Peter Singer, in his recent book on global ethics, I'll have more to say next week about Bush's fraudulent and despicable Earth Day media blitz, and the major media's shameless lack of critical evaluation of the utter nonsense that his propaganda machine has been churning out this week on the environment -- newspeak of Orwellian proportions. The first part of Singer's book deals with environmental responsibility, and his prescription for increasing it -- immediate ratification of Kyoto by the US and other holdout countries, and introduction of an emissions trading mechanism to make the realization of Kyoto feasible (subject to the need for some oversight on the disposition of the proceeds of such trading when it involves autocratic governments). The second part of the book deals with the global economy, and Singer adroitly tears apart the Economist's (and other neocons') naive assertion that economic globalization somehow benefits both rich and poor countries. He then goes on to prescribe a substantial reform of the WTO and the GATT, which could actually lead to more equitable distribution of wealth and more efficient production of economic goods, while safeguarding human rights, labour and the environment. Unfortunately, the multi-national corporations and corporatists who hold sway in the WTO would never tolerate Singer's prescription, since it would entirely divert the benefits of economic globalization from their pockets to those of the world's poor. The third part of the book deals with international law, and Singer lashes out at Bush for his unconscionable refusal to ratify the International Court of Justice, and for the UN's continued hesitancy to accept a duty (not a right) to intervene in situations of genocide and other humanitarian crises, even within a single nation. Singer is sanguine about the limitations and dangers of 'global government', but supports strengthening the UN to enable it to act as a 'protector of last resort', and including in its mandate the responsibility to supervise elections in all member nations. The fourth and final part goes back to ethical principles and proposes that countries must, in this world where national boundaries no longer have any logistic meaning, set aside national interest and embrace, once and for all, global interest, impartially. That does not mean cultural homogenization, but imposes a responsibility for the reduction of inequality, both of economic resources and personal rights and freedoms. Always the pragmatist, Singer concludes by worrying out loud about how the responsibility for a global ethic could be managed: It
is widely believed that a world government would be, at best, an
unchecked bureaucratic behemoth that would make the bureaucracy of the
EU look lean and efficient. At worst, it would become a global
tyranny,
unchecked and unchallengeable. These thoughts have to be taken
seriously. How to prevent global bodies becoming either dangerous
tyrannies or self-aggrandizing bureaucracies, and instead make them
effective and responsive to the people whose lives they affect? It is
a
challenge that should not be beyond the best minds in the fields of
political science and public administration.
I'd like to believe that this was possible, because if it isn't, we're in serious trouble. We cannot expect national governments to set aside parochial interests, especially when this entails accepting a responsibility that would, for the richer nations, inevitably lead to a drastic redistribution of wealth to poorer nations and hence a sudden and sharp reduction in, at least, economic living standards (if not necessarily well-being). But as John Ralston Saul has so eloquently argued, larger organizations and institutions, whether public or private, are almost always, and inherently, less efficient, less agile, more resistant to change, more hierarchic, and less transparent than smaller organizations. So the challenge is to achieve the best of both worlds, having organizations of global scope and authority and responsibility, but broken up into sufficiently small, autonomous and dynamic units that they are sensitive, resilient, responsible and responsive to the people and communities they serve. We can only hope that "the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration", wherever they are, are up to the task. |
The Beeb has a short profile
of the upcoming 'stealth ships' being designed by various world navies
(including the U.S. and its DD(X) destroyers), focussing specifically
on the Swedes' carbon fiber Visby Corvette, an angular low-profile (to
radar and otherwise) ship with, among other innovations, includes a
retractable 57mm cannon. Although there are many criticisms about
building a 73-meter ship out of carbon fiber, some have questioned the
Swedish Navy's decision to use Windows NT to control the operation of
the ship, especially since, you know, that'
s gone so well before. (I know it's a cheap shot, but I saw the
story on Slashdot; I caught the open sores).
Read [BBC via /.]
« A mast and sails on a Finnish Tall Ship during a 90 minute tour around Kruunuvuorenselkä on Helsinki Day. »
On Helsinki Day we got tickets for the Old Tall Ships Tour on the Inga-Lill. The Brits and the Dutch seem to titter at the Finnish tall ships since, of course, theirs are larger and they both had navies of some repute, but the Finns do like to remind them that without Finnish pine tar their boats would have sunk in rather short order. The day was as wet as it could be without it being a full monsoon which made it somewhat difficult to take pictures, but it was still a treat to ride out into open water under full sail without the help of an engine.
There is something terribly romantic about these wooden ships in an age of the giant metal cruise ships which insulate you as much as possible from the idea that you are on the water. The captain of the ship did give a reasonably long talk about the history of the tall ships in Finnish which I hope I have remembered correctly. The Inga-Lill was built in 1947, after WWII, as a cargo ship to transport goods around the Baltic and the archipelago. Most of the surviving tall ships were built around this period since there were a lot of idle shipwrights in the post-war slump and they needed work. When more modern cargo ships were developed these boats were left behind but have been restored to their original beauty in recent years thanks to enthusiasts and charter cruises. The crew mentioned that the Traditional Sailing Ships Association welcomes new members, which would be a really interesting thing to do, but I'm not much of a sailor. There is a very thorough tall ships website which has a lot of history and details on boats from many different countries and also the Maritime Museum of Finland which covers the history of the tall ships in Finland.
>Roland
Tanglao and myself have been ivnolved in a little company up in
Vancouver named Qumana. They've
developed an innovative way of browsing and publishing micro-content -
though today it's still just blog posts.
But the darg-and-drop gesturing, the clean design and intuitive approach - serves as a new paradigm in personal publishing that I'd wish that NetNewsWire, NewsGator and ecto would pick up on.
Anyway - here's Roland's post......
Congrats and good luck to the Qumana crew!I have been an unofficial (and of course unpaid) advisor to these folks for many moons. I love their vision of a drag and drop microcontent remixer for blogs initially (and the world later!). Qumana's current state reminds me of the early days of the Flickr: lots of unrealized potential. Fred has an ace marketer in Victor and an ace visionary in Jon. Now all Qumana needs is an ace social software developer like Cal and an ace social software interface lead like Stewart and the rest is blood, sweat and code (and money!).
From Wirearchy :: It's Official !:
QUOTE
Today, Thursday, September 16, 2004 marks our official start to the beta release of Qumana.Qumana is a microcontent assembly and publishing application that features three integrated capabilities that are extremely useful to all people who create and author content for publication to blogs, web sites, email, and documents.
UNQUOTE
Congrats to Jon, Fred and Victor!
NetNewsWire 1.0.1 has
been released! Here’s the Wha
t’s New in NetNewsWire 1.0.1 page. The biggest changes since
1.0 are crashing bug fixes.The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
