Financial Times article on Merkel (paywalled) What I noticed was the following line:Domestic politicians such as Mr Schröder have often portrayed the European Commission as an institution infested with Anglo-Saxon libertarian zealotsWhoa. That comment may have just increased my respect for the EC? :p

Work has been pretty harsh lately, so I’ve been feebly attempting to unwind with video games. I purchased Romancing Saga, Soul Calibur 3, and Dragon Quest 8 this last couple weeks.I haven’t even stuck SC3 in the ps2 yet…Dragon quest 8 is pretty good, standard DQ fare, but so far it seems to have less potential than DQ7. DQ7 let you rebuild the world… I like games like that. (Also why I play Dark Cloud 1&2, Terranigma, and Soul Blazer.

(Link dead) Just when it seems like BMG is making progress on their understanding of how to treat customers…Sony BMG, after announcing a recall of some 4.7 million CDs with the software on Wednesday, said on Friday consumers could mail their CDs to the company, and they would receive a new unprotected CD in return.Pending the processing of the exchange programme, consumers would also receive an email with details of a website where they could download the music tracks as unprotected MP3 files.

Can be summed up by… While self.alive: Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Romancing Saga, Ratchet Deadlocked, (Father of the Pride, Disgaea,) Sleep, SleepEach word represents about the same amount of time, more or less.Ratchet Deadlocked isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It seems much more linear in level design than the previous 3 however. Rental, going to return it on the 12th.Romancing Saga reminds me alot of Saga Frontier.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/11/03/secfocus_drm/ It’s actually been going on for a long time. This is why I run all CDs I buy through my linux box before I ever let them touch anything else…

Got a call at work, did the standard “X company, this is Kaz” and got some confused old lady mumbling something, apparently hung up (didn’t do a good job of it however, and didn’t say it was a wrong number.) I said “hello?” then she yelled at me “This is long distance, GET OFF THE PHONE!” Uh. You called me. You can just hang up and leave it there for a few seconds to cut the connection, right?

(Link dead) Hopefully they won’t succeed, else we may find ourselves falling to the lowest common denominator in freedom, where people like Mugabe and the chinese ruling party dictate worldwide internet laws.

Being a former BBS operator and Fidonet node, I’m often simultaneously awed and bewildered at how Internet technology lags behind and skips right past many of the innovations that we used in Fido. It’s always 0 or light speed on the net. Take Mbox and Maildir formats for instance. I came across this article today and it nudged me into thinking about the subject again.Both of these can sort of be seen as similar to technologies used in BBSes and Fido.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=15046 What is interesting to me is the following line.The ROM Mark is a unique and undetectable identifier embedded in pre-recorded ROM media such as movies, music and games. While invisible to consumers, the ROM Mark can be mastered only with equipment available to licensed BD-ROM manufacturers. The Blu-ray Disc Association intends to ensure that only disks that contain the ROM Mark will be playable on Blu-ray systems, rendering piracy meaningless.

How do you know a forecaster really knows Hurricanes and what they can do? When they live in Colorado, where such things are unlikely to hit. ;) (Link dead)