This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Google Apps for business has a number of benefits over traditional business IT and desktop software. Using the full suite essentially places all of your data and entire workflow in the cloud, meaning you can access it all anywhere, any time, from any Internet connection.

At $50 per year per user, the fully integrated apps system is certainly cost-effective, and even adding the free versions of Gmail, Calendar, and Google Docs into your workflow can keep your employees coordinated.

For more casual users, or even those who might not be acquainted with Google Apps, here’s a guide to how the software can benefit your small business.

Gmail

The many advanced features of Gmail really make it a leap forward in the web-based e-mail space, and a lot of these are ideal for business.

If you’re not ready to take the full plunge into the paid Google Apps suite, you can still configure Gmail to function as your business e-mail client through your existing domain name by following the steps outlined in my post, “How to Set Up Gmail as Your Business E-mail Client.”

The first big advantage of Gmail, like all the apps discussed here, is that it functions in the cloud. You don’t have to worry about downloading messages to multiple locations or syncing various devices. Your inbox will look the same from any web or mobile connection. And with 25 gigs of e-mail storage per user (with a paid apps account), it’s unlikely you’ll ever have to clean your inbox or delete old messages.

Gmail works a bit differently than traditional desktop clients and webmail services in that conversations are “threaded.” This means that e-mails with the same or related subject lines are grouped together in a thread so you can see all the messages sent and received on a topic in one place. When a new message is received, the entire thread is bumped to the top of your inbox, making tracking complex and multi-party conversations easy.

Gmail also has a chat feature built right into the interface that lets you send a quick update or discuss a project with an employee if you’re not in the same office. Chats are also stored in Gmail so that you can search and refer to them later.

Google search, the asset that started it all for the company, is of course built right into Gmail, which makes finding information from e-mail conversations (even very old ones) extremely efficient.

Additionally, Gmail Labs offers some extra settings for your inbox that can be extremely valuable for business use:

• Signature Tweaks puts your e-mail signature before the quoted text in a reply the way that Outlook would.
• Default ‘Reply to All’ allows you to reply to group e-mails with one click, instead of from a drop-down menu.
• Forgotten Attachment Detector will notify you if you’ve mentioned an attachment in an e-mail, but forgotten to add one.
• Undo Send gives you a few seconds after sending a message to click “undo” in case you forgot something, or sent it to the wrong party by mistake.
• Title Tweaks is a great feature that puts your unread message count first in the title of the inbox web page. If you have many windows open while you’re working, you’ll still be able to see when new messages arrive.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a web-based suite for word processing, presentation building (similar to PowerPoint), spreadsheets, and web forms. All the work is done in a web browser, and all the data is saved in the cloud.

The software can be a bit quirky at times, which may frustrate users of more stable products like Microsoft Office, but the payoff in online storage, shareability, and collaboration options may be worth the adjustment for many small businesses.

Because the data is online, streamlined document sharing and collaboration are big perks with Google Docs. Any file you’re working on can be shared with individual team members, or the entire group within the apps system. You can also set permissions for specific users to view and edit documents. And, multiple users can simultaneously view and edit documents, which can be useful for real-time collaborative projects or presentations during conference calls. You can also grant permission for those outside your office network to view and edit documents, which can be especially useful for sharing information and presentations with clients or colleagues.

As you create and share documents, your Google Docs dashboard may start to get a little messy. Be sure to create folders to keep your work organized just as you would on your desktop. You can also share entire folders if you need to collaborate on multiple documents related to the same project.

Calendar

Google Calendar provides an efficient and intuitive way to keep appointments and events synced across your entire business. With calendar sharing and permissions (similar to those in Docs), you can add other employees’ calendars to your own, and vice versa, in order to see and manage the big picture of your team’s time.

For example, if an executive has an assistant, their calendars may be shared so that the assistant could manage his boss’s appointments remotely from his own account. It’s also a smart tool for coordinating meetings, calls, and shift staffing for multiple employees to avoid scheduling conflicts. Sharing multiple calendars with one “master calendar” creates a color-coded scheduling table for the coordinator that updates automatically when users make changes or additions.

The Calendar app can also be used to create events through Gmail. By adding your employees’ e-mail addresses to an event, they will receive an invitation to respond. Responding ‘yes’ automatically adds a shared event to your calendar that each invitee can view and add notes to. It’s a smart way to coordinate meetings and keep everyone in the loop.

Google Sites

Google Sites is a drag-and-drop web development tool that you can use within your business’s apps to create online information hubs for employees. The websites you create exist within your Google Apps domain, can be public or private, and permissions for employees to add, change, and contribute information can be set from the main account.

Beyond simply being a WYSIWYG web editor, Sites makes it easy to integrate data from other Google Apps into dynamic pages that team members can use to collaborate on projects. Integrating spreadsheets or data charts from Docs, a deadline schedule from Calendar, and team-specific messages from Gmail could essentially create a one-stop project dashboard full of dynamically updating information.

Sites here can be purely functional or informational, or with the aid of some built-in templates or a good designer, a full-fledged dynamic public website for your business that team members have easy access to.

Google Groups

Google Groups have long been public forums where users across the web gather to discuss specific interests or get technical support. Groups for business brings that same functionality into your private internal network.

E-mail can sometimes be cumbersome when coordinating a team. When you need a central space to collect ideas and share documents (but you’re not interested in building a web page in Sites), Groups offers a solution.

Employees can create discussion groups on their own and subscribe, either by e-mail or via a Groups dashboard, which lists new posts like a news reader.

Rather than e-mails going out to individual inboxes, a group thread remains visible to all of your subscribed team members, and users can go back to it for reference, to add more information, and even share docs and calendars.

Using Groups for business discussions and project management creates a communal and searchable database of information that employees can go back to whenever needed.

Google Apps Marketplace

Google’s recently launched Google Apps Marketplace allows developers of other business web apps to integrate their offerings with Google and sell software directly to Google Apps users. The marketplace currently has over 50 partners, including Intuit, Zoho, and Aviary. This additional space for third-party software means that Apps users will have even more options to tailor their suite for specific business purposes.

Smart Integration Across the Board

While each app has worthwhile features, perhaps one of the best advantages is the way that they all integrate with one another. Documents and appointments can be easily shared via e-mail, and your inbox can be used as a portal for productivity via embeddable widgets, chat, and other notifications.

If your small business is ready for a web-based, collaboration-minded IT solution, Google Apps is certainly a cost-effective way to go, and you can investigate the free versions simply by signing up for a Gmail account to determine if the suite is right for your workflow.

More business resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
- HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
- HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, CostinT

Tags: business, gmail, Google, google apps, Google Calendar, google docs, google labs, List, Lists, productivity, small business

WebYep 1.4.6WebYep is a compact Web Content Management System for extremely simple creation of editable web pages. It is a low priced alternative for small to medium web sites.

WebYep focuses on web designers that concentrate on design and don't want to adopt PHP or deep HTML skills to simply make some pages (of a maybe already existing website) editable.

WebYep uses reduced functionality on the user (editor) side, keeping the web designer in control and removing the load of complex content administration from the user - editing web content with WebYep can truly be done by everyone!

As it's very important to us that you can easily test the full feature set of WebYep, you can download here and run the full version of WebYep including the WebYep Dreamweaver Extension without a license code!

Until a valid license code is entered, you will only see a popup window (with a demo notice) when accessing the website that uses WebYep. Beside that, the "demo" mode has no restrictions and offers the full feature set.

WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.4.6:

• Fixed: Problems with the recognition of an installed CKEditor when using the RapidWeaver Plugin (the relevant pages must be re-exported after installing the new plugin).
• Fixed: Problem with CKEditor and Internet Explorer (JavaScript errors).
• Improved: URL format used by the Menu Element. Open menu trees are now remembered in the cookies instead of the URL. The URL query key for the current document instance was changed to "DOC_INST" (was "WEBYEP_DI").
• New: Added ckeditor_styles.js to set up CKEditor's Styles popup menu (see Rich Text Element's documentation for details).
• Improved: Image detail window (when not using Lightbox) now better supports very large images.
• Improved: Restoring of editor window sizes.

REQUIREMENTSA web server with PHP 4.1, 5.1 or later installed.
PRICE$35.52
DEVELOPERObjective Development Software GmbH
DOWNLOADS7352
DOWNLOAD NOW (1.2 MB)
More information

I was on a panel at OSBC with Dave Mcallister of Adobe and Brian Goldfarb of Microsoft. I wanted to talk to Brian about canvas in IE9 but held off until later where I even offered the community up to write the IE code ;)

Someone off the record told me last week “it is coming… don’t worry” but that is rumor. And then Russell Leggett sent me a link to a piece by AMD on IE9 and GPU usage that had two interesting quotes:

The <canvas> element will be accelerated on the GPU via Direct2D and will enable hardware accelerated rendering contexts for application development, improving visual display, reducing CPU usage, and improving power usage.

…

AMD is working with multiple teams at Microsoft to ensure that technologies such as IE and Silverlight continue to move the PC platform forward.

Put us out of our misery Microsoft. Don’t make us create a http://petitionforie9tohavecanvas.com website ;)

The UK Government continues to push forward the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) that aims to protect copyright holders from online pirates. On 15th March the House of Lords approved the bill and handed it over to the House of Commons.

To the absolute dismay of most outside the music and movie industries, some of the most controversial elements of the Bill are unlikely to receive any major scrutiny and will be dealt with quickly under the so-called “wash-up”, a short period between the announcement of an election and parliament being closed down.

“It’s a deeply unsatisfactory and very worrying development,” a senior executive from an ISP told The Guardian. “The fear is that no one will know what is being cooked-up before it becomes law. It’s legislation on the hoof.”

But this situation suits the BPI just fine. This week a leaked memo from the BPI fell into the hands of Cory Doctorow which showed that the “LibDem amendment” – a proposal under the DEB which would allow for websites to be blocked if, essentially, the BPI didn’t like their activities – was in fact written by the BPI. Very cosy.

But the controversies don’t end there. Doctorow also received an internal document prepared by the BPI’s Director of Public Affairs and prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, Richard Mollet. In the document he admitted that the only reason the DEB had a chance of passing is because MP’s are resigned to voting on it without debate.

“Translation: if MPs got to debate the Bill, they would tear it to unrecognizable pieces as they realized what terrible rubbish it really is,” wrote Doctorow. The scandals go on and on, but we have to stop somewhere.

Nevertheless, UK Music head Feargal Sharkey says that he is confident that the DEB will be passed before the general election, although others are not so sure.

“It will still be nip and tuck to get the Digital Economy Bill onto the statute book before the election so the battle is not won yet,” wrote Shadow Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, on his blog this week.

According to Jim Killock at the Open Rights Group, UK citizens aren’t leaving anything to chance with 10,000 of them having written to their MPs in the last three days to demand a debate on the Digital Economy Bill.

“It is outrageous for corporate lobbyists including the BPI, FAST and UK Music to demand that MPs curtail democracy and ram this Bill through Parliament without debate,” says Killock, adding: “The British people did not elect UK Music and the BPI to write our laws.”

Killock says that what is making the 10,000 so angry is the pushing through of the DEB without debate, an act he describes as “undemocratic and dangerous”.

If you’d like to add your dissenting voice, please email your MP, write to your local newspaper, and attend the planned demonstrations.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Calling the UKs best creative talent.

Get involved in a music first...

As part of a larger event called Unknown Pleasures, celebrating the life of Ian Curtis on the 30th anniversary of his death, Un-Convention has been commissioned to develop a very special version of the event. Un-Convention have teamed up with the creators of iconic indie-rock footwear, Converse, to search for 300 of the UK’s most promising creative minds.

This is your opportunity to attend this spectacular free event –

8 bands
60 music industry professionals
300 people
12 hours to record, produce and release an album.

This is Un-Convention Factory

Get involved...watch the bands record the tracks live, design the sleeve, debate ideas, learn about releasing music, explore new digital platforms and create a unique piece of history.

At Un-convention Factory, a mill space will be transformed to contain all of the elements and processes involved in creating and releasing a record. You’ll be free to explore everything that is going on, interact with music industry professionals and ultimately make all the decisions along the way.

We’ll even provide food, drink, a free pair of trainers and a CD of the finished album by the end of the day for everyone who attends.

And to cap it off, the day will end with a free evening show featuring the bands involved, with a line up including Reverend Soundsystem, The Whip, I Am Kloot, New Education, Young Fathers, Virginmarys and more.

Music industry professionals include Peter Hook (New Order), Graham Massey (808 State), Har Mar Superstar, Andrew Dubber (New Music Strategies) and Karen Piper (Radarmaker).

It’s all taking place on 8th May 2010 at Un-Convention Factory in The Heritage Centre, Macclesfield.

If you’re in a band, make cool videos, design amazing things, run a cutting edge blog or are just keen to get involved then tell us about it and you could be coming to Un-Convention Factory. For the chance for you and a friend to attend this free, once in a lifetime event visit www.unconventionhub.org.

Applications close on 26th April 2010

Enquiries to: steph@fatnortherner.com

Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Vol. 76, No. 1-3. (1 June 2001), pp. 226-234.

Nitric oxide (NO) is recognized as playing a critical role in an ever-increasing list of diseases. An important requirement for more extensive utilization of the potential diagnostic value of NO concentrations in human breath is the development of low-cost, reliable NO monitoring devices. This paper describes a promising approach to meet this requirement using a semiconducting metal oxide based chemiresistive sensor. We have shown that it is possible to monitor NO levels in human breath samples with a WO 3 based thin film chemiresistive sensor element. The sensor element is highly sensitive to nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ). Monitoring of NO is achieved via oxidation of the NO component in breath samples by an oxidizing agent such as alumina supported potassium permanganate (KMnO 4 ). Human breath contains a large number of organic compounds that can interfere with the response of the sensor element as well as NO 2 . Molecular sieve filter materials such as silicalite are used to remove these interfering compounds from breath samples without affecting their NO concentrations. Verification of this monitoring scheme is demonstrated with data which correlates sensor response with NO concentrations in human breath samples, as determined by a chemiluminescence NO analyzer.
B Fruhberger

Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Vol. 111-112 (11 November 2005), pp. 494-499.

An increase in hydrogen peroxide concentration in exhaled breath (EB) of patients, who suffer from some diseases related to the lung function, has been observed and considered as a reliable indicator of lung diseases. In the EB of these patients, hydrogen peroxide is present in the vapour phase together with water, thus one of the approaches of monitoring hydrogen peroxide in the EB is to condense it and then to perform the hydrogen peroxide measurement in the condensate. Earlier, a hydrogen peroxide sensor based on an electrolyte metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor ( E MOSFET) has been investigated. The sensor shows the possibility to measure hydrogen peroxide at a concentration of micro-molar level. Due to its miniaturizability, the sensor is able to detect hydrogen peroxide in a small volume and is thus especially suitable for monitoring of hydrogen peroxide in the EB. In this paper, a simple set-up for condensation of hydrogen peroxide in the EB is introduced. The set-up consists of a cooling tube using a Peltier element for condensation of the exhaled breath air and the E MOSFET-based hydrogen peroxide sensor. Using this cooling tube, primary results on the collection and measurement of hydrogen peroxide in artificial EB are given.
D Anh, W Olthuis, P Bergveld

Whatever happened to actually competing in the market place? Copycense points us to a recent legal battle between Dixie and Huhtamaki over the design of their disposable coffee cups. Seriously. Dixie claimed that Huhtamaki violated its trade dress because its cups, like Dixie's, included a white band at the bottom of the cup. After two years in court, the judge, thankfully, didn't see what the big deal was over both cups having a white strip at the bottom and ruled against Dixie. In part, the judge noted, Dixie never proved that the white strip was non-functional, which is important, since trade dress is supposed to be for non-functional design elements: Dixie even provided alternative designs for Huhtamaki to adopt to differentiate its cup from Dixie's, according to the judge's order.

"Because Huhtamaki would either incur additional costs or sacrifice design quality if it were forced to adopt one of Dixie's alternative designs, the court finds that the product feature in question is functional under the traditional test." Still, just the fact that lawsuits like this even exist in the first place shows how far gone these things have gone. It's as if every company feels entitled to having no competition whatsoever, and will sue anyone who offers anything remotely similar. What a sad state of affairs.

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In Genetic Variation , Vol. 628 (2010), pp. 21-38.

Genome browsers are powerful tools for biologists - offering fundamental information on genes, regulatory elements, genomic variants, genome structure, and evolution. The comprehensive range of information presented in tools such as the UCSC genome browser and Ensembl enables integrated queries of data that are otherwise reserved to the most skilled computational biologists. However, for the non-specialist user, the juxtaposition of so many different forms of data in one small space can be an information overload. Getting the most out of these tools requires some understanding of the key concepts and caveats of genome visualization and annotation. Genome analysis can be carried out at different levels of detail - at a macro level; it improves understanding of issues like genome structure and species evolution. While at a micro level, genome annotation can help to describe the full complexity of gene regulation, variation, and transcript diversity. Once demystified, it is clear that genome browsers are more than the sum of their parts - they are the most comprehensive portals available for browsing and analysis of biological data.
Michael Barnes

New fantasy hack and slasher looks promising

Dungeon crawler games have fallen way out of fashion in the last 10-15 years, so the genuine excitement shown by the developers of new title Hunted: The Demon's Forge at the recent press launch was understandable. Clearly the standard marketing and focus group considerations would have been taking into consideration when green lighting the game but you definitely got the feeling that Hunted is a labour of love for the team. Not surprising, perhaps, when you consider that the project lead is Bard's Tale veteran Brian Fargo.

Hunted is a third-person, co-op based, action RPG with a standard fantasy setting that felt very familiar. The decent enough visuals won't win any awards either but this doesn't look like a game where you'll be gawping at the scenery. The demo showed a lot of hack and slash action and even more of the female protagonist – yes, this isn't a good example to use in any "games have grown up, honest!" style argument - but it does look like it could be fun to play, especially in co-op. The dynamic between the male melee character and the female archer was an obvious co-op design decision and the demo showed what could be a common sight – the archer picking off enemies from range while the melee character hacks away up close. This all sounds very MMO-like but while customisation is available you will not be able to create your own character from scratch. I spoke to game director Maxx Kaufman about design, influences and how co-op will work.

What is the background to the game?

Being huge fans of fantasy and Dungeon & Dragons, we were inspired to create a game that would allow us to get lost in a dungeon, fight AND explore a really cool fantasy world. As a kid I always dreamed of fighting monsters with a sword and a bow as well as exploring for magic and treasure. Now in Hunted I can do that. It is an exhilarating experience to see this world come to life.

Why is now the time to relaunch the dungeon crawler genre?

In the past these games have always been very successful but I think that they've gotten lost with the MMO craze. We really felt that it was time to bring the dungeon crawl back – but in a way that made sense to today's gamer.

Hunted is a cover action game at its core but it also allows the player the opportunity to explore the game's vast environments. At certain times in the game the player will be fighting waves of enemies while at other times they'll be searching through dark, eerie dungeons.

Do you think the linear dungeon crawl experience will appeal to gamers used to the wide open worlds of Fallout and World of Warcraft?

The world in which Hunted takes place is really rich and exciting. We like to think of it as getting on a roller coaster whether you are alone or with a friend – it's just a really engaging experience either way. Players will be on an adventure that takes them through numerous locales – they'll go deep into underground dungeons, make their way through really awe-inspiring outdoor environments and wind their way through these old towns. Our goal is to create a compelling experience that gives players the sensation of being in a Lord of the Rings-esque movie.

How important is the co-op to the game?

Co-op is vital to our game. It was planned from the very beginning that this would be a co-op game and our design and story is based around that. In the past co-op games have had a tendency to tether players together. We have implemented the opposite philosophy that we call co-op at a distance. We encourage the players to separate and support one another from a distance.

All of our spells and skills are based around the idea of players being apart but able to help each other. For example you can heal a downed player by throwing a re-gen vial at a distance. This avoids the tedious task of running to your partner and slapping them back to life. Ice arrows will allow Elara, our ranged character, to shoot and freeze enemies from a distance. Caddoc will then simply smash them into pieces. Caddoc has a levitation skill that will allow him to create a radius of levitation around his sword that will cause enemies in the area to float harmlessly around him. Elara is then able to shoot them from a distance.

Co-op at a distance is threaded through every aspect of Hunted's design, from enemies to spells, and in the level design. It even carries over to the single-player mode. A player can play the game with an AI partner and still get a similar experience.

How important is the story to the game?

For us, the story sets the mood and it gives us an important frame work from which to create the game.

For players, as with most games, the story unfolds as they make their way through the game. Those who want to delve deeper in the story can find clues and information to the game's 500 year plus lore. Alternatively, if you are the type of player who is only interested in action, you can play through the game and still have a rich experience.

How does online play work - do you get XP etc in someone else's game?

Players that play online will gain crystals, which are the currency used to gain spells and skills. For example, if you play online and you are further ahead in the game than I am, I can play with you, and the crystals I gain can be transferred back to my single player campaign.

What customization options are available?

There are various weapons and items the player can pick up that will boost certain abilities, but the real customization comes in with our skills and spells system. The players trade in crystals they find throughout the world for various skills. Because the characters have unique abilities there is a lot of variation in the types of customization that can be achieved.

E'lara will gain spells and skills that are related to her bow while Caddoc's skills are based around his melee combat. Some of these skills are common to both characters, but there are many skills that are unique to each character based on their strengths, such as Levitation for Caddoc and Ice Arrow for E'lara. Ultimately playing Hunted will be a very different experience based on the customizations you choose.

Do you think co-op is more important than competitive play in online gaming generally?

It's not a case of one being more important than the other. In the case of Hunted, it was about what made the most sense and what people would want, and that's to experience this alongside a friend or someone else, not fighting head-to-head.

Can you explain how the levelling up and RPG elements work?

The leveling occurs when you meet up with an ethereal spirit named Seraphine. She tasks the player with collecting crystals and in return she will grant you spells and skills. By finding better weapons that are throughout the world, players can also upgrade their weapons. If you are the type of player that enjoys exploration we have tons of secrets. The more challenging secrets will yield better items and loot.

What sort of audience do you think Hunted will attract?

Because fantasy games have such a large fan base I think Hunted has broad appeal. We are melding two popular game genres – fantasy and action - into one game which makes its appeal even wider.

While the MMO fans will enjoy the ability to just pick up and play, they will also be taken on a cinematic adventure in the genre they love.

The metal soundtrack and scantily clad ladies suggest a traditional gamer but do you think a wider audience may be interested?

We're going for a soundtrack similar to the movie "300". And who doesn't like scantily clad ladies? Both of these elements will appeal to a large audience and fit within the context on the game.

Is Hunted a reaction to more complex RPGs that have sprung up over the last 10 years?

Hunted is a reimagining of the forgotten dungeon crawl category using today's technology and gameplay styles, for today's gamer.

Hunted: Demon's Forge is released on PC, 360 and PS3 later this year

• Games

Greg Howsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

We have launched a blog focused on fall protection – not on fall protection equipment – but on all elements that contribute to enhancing fall safety. (PRWeb Mar 19, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/LJB/fall_protection_blog/prweb3749344.htm

On Fox, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore claimed that one reason the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the health care reform reconciliation package reduces the deficit is because it scored "10 years of revenue ... but only six years of spending," adding that "if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser." In fact, CBO estimated that the bill will continue to lower the deficit after 2019, long after all the spending has kicked in.

Moore falsely claims "if you match up the cost with the revenues," the bill "is a revenue loser"

Moore claims spending and revenue "mismatch" kept bill from looking like a "revenue loser." From the March 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (host): How do they say we're going to pay for this?

MOORE: OK. So, first of all, this is roughly a trillion -- let's just round it to about a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But, remember, this runs into the problem we talked about a couple weeks ago that it's -- the way that CBO has scored it: 10 years of revenues, Greta, but only six years of spending. So, it's a mismatch.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. All right, so, for 10 years we're going to be paying for it, but we don't get 10 years of services?

MOORE: Right. We get six years.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right.

MOORE: That's one way they keep the deficit down because they don't start spending until the year's out.

VAN SUSTEREN: But they start collecting.

MOORE: Right. And so, actually --

VAN SUSTEREN: That's like going -- that's like making a car payment for four years but they don't deliver the car for four years.

MOORE: Well put. I like that analogy, and --

VAN SUSTEREN: And so you sit there and wait.

MOORE: And so, in fact, if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser.

VAN SUSTEREN: I think that's silly the way they do that.

CBO projected deficit reductions would continue after 2019

CBO: Senate bill yields "a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion" over 10 years. On March 18, CBO released its preliminary estimate of the effect of the combined effect of the Senate bill and reconciliation proposal on the federal budget. It found:

CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation -- H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal -- would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

CBO: Over second 10 years, reconciliation bill would save "around one-half percent of GDP." CBO also estimated savings for the decade following the 2010-2019 period:

Therefore, CBO has developed a rough outlook for the decade following the 2010-2019 period by grouping the elements of the legislation into broad categories and (together with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation) assessing the rate at which the budgetary impact of each of those broad categories is likely to increase over time.

[...]

Using that same analytic approach, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation bill would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law -- with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Literally every day at Betanews, we get at least one security vendor "alert" of some type, warning us to be on the lookout for the latest malware. The message is always the same: Advise users to stay vigilant, to keep patching, to upgrade their antivirus to the latest editions. But the profiles of the malware typically look the same, too -- stuff you might click on by accident, links pretending to be from your "best friend" in an e-mail message, ads for products that look too good to be true.

For many of us, the situation is getting to be like the US' terror alert level, which has remained at "Yellow" since the fall of 2007. We starting to forget what "elevated" vigilance means. And maybe that's a problem, because lack of attention to advice about real threats could become as dangerous as lack of attention to any one of those miracle weight-loss links.

This isn't an ad, it's my opinion: Over the years, I've trusted the engineers at Sophos Labs to present down-to-earth analyses of possible security scares. This morning, I forwarded two recent reports from other well-known security vendors to Sophos' Chester Wisniewski, reports about malware that didn't fit the ordinary profile we tend to see from day to day.

The first report comes from ALWIL Software, publishers of Avast anti-virus, and it's been heavily circulated since it was first issued last February. It speaks of the horrors of receiving unsolicited malware by way of JavaScript elements embedded in the ads that appear on Web sites -- the sources of which, sometimes, innocent publishers have no control over.

"The malware usually spreads through Web infection placed on innocent, badly secured Web sites," reads last month's initial warning from the Czech Republic-based Avast's Jiri Sejtko. "The ad infiltration method is growing in popularity alongside with the Web site infections. Now we are facing probably the biggest ad poisoning ever made -- all important ad services are affected. It means that users might get infected just by reading their favorite newspaper or by doing search on famous Web indexers. User interaction is not needed in this attack -- infection begins just after poisoned ad is loaded by the browser -- it is not a type of social engineering."

A chart from the ALWIL security research team showing what it claims to be the number of detected instances of malware sent by advertising platforms over a six-day period.

ALWIL's research found the Fox Audience Network as among the ad platforms spreading the alleged infection, which the firm dubbed "JS:Prontexi." On Tuesday, a public relations effort by the firm dubbed the malware a "widespread campaign," leading to blanket coverage such as this story in Media Post on Tuesday, this story in the Danish BizReport earlier today, and this blog post on Photoxels, which contains the original press release in its entirety.

That press release stated as many as one in two online ads served worldwide was in danger of being infected by the malware the ALWIL team discovered. "JS:Prontexi highlights the lack of care shown by advertising services providers to actively screen the content they are distributing," Sejtko is quoted as saying.

Can this problem truly be this bad -- a malware component with a 50% worldwide Web reach?

"Infections on ad services are certainly of heightened concern," Sophos' Chet Wisniewski told Betanews earlier today, "yet this is almost a month old, and the miscreants who caused this incident have since moved on. To claim it as the biggest ad server compromise ever seems to me to be a bit of hyperbole." The moral of the story, according to the ALWIL press release: Pay attention to situations where you may think antivirus software like Avast is returning false positives...they may not be false. Again quoting Sejtko, "Consumers shouldn't immediately accuse their antivirus program of a false positive when a familiar site gets blocked. There can be a real danger."

The other "red alert" this week comes from McAfee Labs, as part of its new program of publishing "Consumer Threat Alerts." One of the first such alerts yesterday concerns a worldwide "Facebook password reset scam." Here, users worldwide are sent an ordinary e-mail -- no graphics, no text formatting, just an e-mail with an attachment: "Dear user of facebook [sic], Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. You can find your new password in attached document. Thanks, Your Facebook."

As McAfee's threat alert from yesterday reads, "This threat is potentially very dangerous considering that there are over 400 million Facebook users who could fall for this scam. This is also the sixth most prevalent piece of malware targeting consumers in the last 24 hours, as tracked by McAfee Labs." Since this is also the type of phishing scam that we see here at Betanews every single day (sometimes every few hours), certainly this can't be the kind of malware delivery mechanism that people fall for, can it? Haven't people smelled this kind of scam long enough to spot it at a distance?

Surprise. As Wisniewski told us, this one deserves the red flag and the blaring klaxons.

"We are seeing very high volumes of this attack. Sophos detects the attachments as TROJ/Invo-Zip, which we talked about being involved in a similar MySpace attack this January. It then proceeds to infect you with Mal/FakeAV-BW (Fake Anti-virus). The same malware is also making the rounds as a fake delivery notification from DHL. The only thing unique is the extremely high volumes and the large user base that Facebook has that could be convinced to run the malware."

So to recap: A completely unsophisticated e-mail attachment, of the garden variety we've seen for the last 15 year, is seen by Sophos as being more dangerous and widespread than an embedded JavaScript that one security researcher says has the potential of appearing in half the world's online ads. The only way to ever find out the truth, is to ask the right questions of the right people.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Warner Bros. Interactive has announced of Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a co-op action RPG, to be released in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The game will be based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel series, not the film property, and will "explore both original and familiar narrative elements" of the series, says the company's press release. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment holds the rights to adapt both the films and ...

If you've waited this long for Episodes from Liberty City, another two weeks shouldn't hurt, right? Rockstar Games has pushed back the PS3 and PC releases of the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto IV expansions by two weeks due to "a request by Sony Europe to make some minor content changes to the PAL PS3 version of the game." According to the press release, "the minor changes made to the game will not affect the gamers enjoyment of the games, these will not affect any gameplay elements and were not related to any local ratings requirements."

All versions of the add-ons -- including the downloadable episodes "The Lost & Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" -- have been delayed to April 13th for North America, and April 16th for all other countries. A Rockstar Games blog post further elaborated on the decision to do a global delay, ensuring that "everyone can experience multiplayer simultaneously, take part in online events together, be on level ground on leaderboards, etc."

GTA: Episodes From Liberty City for PC, PS3 delayed two weeks due to 'minor content changes' originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you've waited this long for Episodes from Liberty City, another two weeks shouldn't hurt, right? Rockstar Games has pushed back the PS3 and PC releases of the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto IV expansions by two weeks due to "a request by Sony Europe to make some minor content changes to the PAL PS3 version of the game." According to the press release, "the minor changes made to the game will not affect the gamers enjoyment of the games, these will not affect any gameplay elements and were not related to any local ratings requirements."

All versions of the add-ons -- including the downloadable episodes "The Lost & Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" -- have been delayed to April 13th for North America, and April 16th for all other countries. A Rockstar Games blog post further elaborated on the decision to do a global delay, ensuring that "everyone can experience multiplayer simultaneously, take part in online events together, be on level ground on leaderboards, etc."

GTA: Episodes From Liberty City for PC, PS3 delayed two weeks due to 'minor content changes' originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

In anticipation of the upcoming immigration marches, Media Matters for America has compiled a review of the hateful and outrageous right-wing rhetoric surrounding the immigration debate in 2006.

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrant-rights marchers, immigrants are seeking to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrant rights marchers are "racis[t]"

Right-wing rhetoric: Pro-immigration marchers should be arrested or deported

Right-wing rhetoric: Stoking fears over displays of the Mexican flag

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigration is an "invasion"

Right-wing rhetoric: U.S., Mexico are in a state of "war"

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrants are fundamentally altering American culture or way of life

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigration reform is part of plot to institute "North American Union"

Other hate speech and outrageous rhetoric

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrant-rights marchers, immigrants are seeking to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico

"Reconquista" is a discredited smear used by the right to generate fear of Latino immigrants. During the 2006 immigration debate, right-wing media repeatedly advanced the discredited smear that Mexican-Americans and Mexican citizens -- particularly "illegal aliens" -- are plotting to take over the U.S. Southwest for Mexico.

Dobbs referred to potential "army" of "illegal alien" "invaders" taking over Southwest. During an April 2006 broadcast of his now-defunct CNN show, Lou Dobbs introduced a report by stating: "There are some Mexican citizens and some Mexican-Americans who want to see California, New Mexico and other parts of the Southwestern United States given over to Mexico. These groups call it the reconquista, Spanish for reconquest. And they view the millions of Mexican illegal aliens in particular entering the United States as potentially an army of invaders to achieve that takeover." Correspondent Christine Romans reported, "Long downplayed as a theory of the radical ethnic fringe, the la reconquista, the reconquest, the reclamation, the return, it's resonating with some on the streets," and went on to say: "A lot of open borders groups disavow it completely. But the growing street protests in favor of illegal immigration, Lou, are increasingly taking on the tone of that very radicalism." [CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, 4/31/06]

CNN reporter referenced "the Vicente Fox Aztlan tour," used "Aztlan" graphic sourced to hate group. Lou Dobbs Tonight correspondent Casey Wian characterized then-Mexican President Vicente Fox's trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, as a "Mexican military incursion" and claimed that "[y]ou could call" Fox's trip to the United States "the Vicente Fox Aztlan tour." During Wian's report, CNN featured a graphic of "Aztlan" that was sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens -- an organization whose "Statement of Principles" reads: "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called 'affirmative action' and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races." [Lou Dobbs Tonight, 5/23/06]

Malkin: "[T]he vast majority of mainstream Hispanic politicians" embrace "the intellectual underpinnings of reconquista." On Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin declared that protesters in Los Angeles were "people who believe that the American southwest belongs to Mexico, that we don't have a right to enforce our borders, and who do nothing more than try to sabotage our sovereignty." Malkin later added that "the kind of quote-unquote 'pride' that a lot of these illegal alien activists are touting now goes much further than just being proud about one's heritage and one's roots. The idea, the intellectual underpinnings of reconquista, are embraced by the vast majority of mainstream Hispanic politicians." [Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, 3/30/06]

Wash. Times editorial: Protesters approve of "reconquista" agenda. A Washington Times editorial accused Latinos who protested against a proposal to restrict immigration of either supporting or having given "tacit approval" to the "reconquista" agenda of "Hispanic radicals," which the editorial said was the "reconquering of Mexican land lost during the Mexican-American war." [The Washington Times, 3/30/06]

Fox's Gibson suspicious that Latino advocacy groups are set on "retaking old Mexico territories ... by pure birth rate." While saying that he was citing an internal email from the National Council of La Raza, John Gibson claimed on his Fox News show that he was suspicious that advocacy groups like the NCLR favor "the so-called reconquista," which Gibson described as the "retaking of old Mexico territories, which are now part of the United States, by pure birth rate." Gibson also asserted that the NCLR "is a group dedicated to the betterment of the race," adding, "good, but try being American while you are at it, guys." [Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, 4/3/06]

O'Reilly: Purported immigrant protest "organizers" have hidden "hardcore militant agenda" to take back American Southwest. On his radio show, O'Reilly said that the "organizers" of immigrant rallies have a "hardcore militant agenda of 'You stole our land, you bad gringos.' " O'Reilly said that the "slogan" of the demonstrations' organizers was "[W]e didn't cross the border, the border crossed us," and that this meant that the organizers believed that Americans "stole [their] land." The organizers' hidden "agenda underneath," said O'Reilly, was that "now, we're going to take it back by massive, massive migration into the Southwest." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 5/1/06]

Buchanan: "Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents" want to "take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war." In his book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, published in August 2006, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan wrote: "Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents have made clear their intent to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war." He also wrote that the United States must keep "Americans of European descent" from becoming the "minority" in order to "survive[]." [State of Emergency (Thomas Dunne Books)]

Malkin: "[W]e saw ... that supposed fringe" that favors reconquista "come out into the mainstream." O'Reilly said to Malkin, "So I know that there's an undercurrent of militancy that says, 'Hey, this is our territory. You stole it from us in the Mexican-American War. We're going to take it back now by illegal immigration.' But I think that's a fringe, nutty group, not the mass of millions that we have." Malkin replied: "Well, I guess I disagree with you there, Bill, because I mean, we saw in April and May of this year [2006] that supposed fringe come out into the mainstream. And it wasn't just a dozen folks who are ensconced in the ivory tower who believe that the Southwest is Aztlan and it belongs to them." O'Reilly later asked her: "You think that this massive immigration to the United States, 15 million strong, is a part of a plan to bring back territory to Mexico?" Malkin responded: "Well, I take the Mexican government at its word when it says that is exactly its plan." [The O'Reilly Factor, 8/23/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrant rights marchers are "racis[t]"

Malkin: "[M]ilitant racism from another protected minority group was on full display" from "Latino supremacists." In her syndicated column, Malkin wrote of immigration rallies, "Well, this weekend, militant racism from another protected minority group was on full display. But you wouldn't know it from press accounts that whitewashed or buried the protesters' virulent anti-American hatred." Malkin also wrote: "Apologists are quick to argue that Latino supremacists are just a small fringe faction of the pro-illegal immigration movement (never mind that their ranks include former and current Hispanic politicians from L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante)." [Creators Syndicate column, 3/29/06]

Savage: "[B]rown supremacists" are "behind these protests." On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage said: "So, it seems to me that there's a certain group of immigrants that's not very happy and they're all Hispanic. I don't see any other racial group out there in the streets, do you? Now, that's very interesting. I'm not allowed to raise the issue or the specter of brown supremacists behind these protests. Don't tell me this is all about compassion for immigrants, because it is not at all only about compassion for immigrants. They are trying to provoke the takeover of the United States of America." [Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation, 4/11/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Pro-immigration marchers should be arrested or deported

Fox's Asman wondered whether marches are a perfect chance to "round up these lawbreakers and ship them out." Guest-hosting Fox News' Your World, David Asman discussed nationwide protests of immigration reform and wondered: "With so many illegals hitting the streets, is this the perfect time to round up these lawbreakers and ship them out?" As Asman spoke, the on-screen text read: "Round 'Em Up?" Later, the text read: "Perfect Chance to Arrest Illegal Immigrants?" [Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, 4/10/06]

Smerconish: "[L]aw enforcement ought to step in" at immigration demonstrations and consider "gathering ... up" undocumented immigrants. Guest-hosting MSNBC's Scarborough Country, Philadelphia-based radio host Michael Smerconish suggested that "maybe law enforcement ought to step in" at pro-immigration demonstrations and consider "gathering ... up" undocumented immigrants. Smerconish wondered why there was "zero discussion" of "gathering them up" at the demonstrations, when "[a]ll I keep hearing is how would we ever find them?" [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 4/10/06]

Doocy suggested "round[ing] them up right then, when they're saying, 'Hey, I'm right here.' " On Fox & Friends, syndicated radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller announced that he was "having a big rally here in Chicago" for a "group" that he said was "pro-illegal murder and illegal car thieves." Muller added: "We're just getting together, and we're going to be out on the street. We're for illegal murder and illegal car thievery. So, we just like illegal stuff." Muller added: "I just like illegal murder and illegal car thieves. So, you know, it's illegal, but -- and, in fact, all the people who have done it are going to be out there on the street, and hopefully, none of the cops will come arrest us." Co-host Steve Doocy then said: "Yeah, you wouldn't want to round them up right then, when they're saying, 'Hey, I'm right here.' " [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 4/3/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Stoking fears over displays of the Mexican flag

Media figures attacked Mexican-flag wavers, but not those waving Irish, Italian, or Israeli flags. Following immigration rallies, media figures criticized demonstrators for carrying Mexican flags, but the same media figures had not complained about people waving other nations' flags, such as Irish flags at St. Patrick's Day events, Italian flags at Columbus Day events, or Israeli flags at Israel Day events. Some commentators even dismissed the comparison. For instance, National Review editor Rich Lowry called the Mexican-flag waving "more ominous" than the St. Patrick's Day or Columbus Day displays.

Savage: "[B]urn the Mexican flag!" On his radio show, Savage urged his listeners to "burn the Mexican flag" in opposition to undocumented immigrants, telling them to "[b]urn a Mexican flag for America, burn a Mexican flag for those who died that you should have a nationality and a sovereignty, go out in the street and show you're a man, burn 10 Mexican flags, if I could recommend it. Put one in the window upside down and tell them to go back where they came from! And if that's a little to xenophobic for you, ask yourself why the xenophobes from Mexico wave their flag in your country." [The Savage Nation, 3/27/06]

Fox News: Waving Mexican flag shows "antagonistic edge," waving U.S. flag "just a cover" and "a ploy to win America's support." Asman cited demonstrators' use of Mexican flags as evidence of "an antagonistic edge" and suggested that the use of U.S. flags and signs written in English at pro-immigration demonstrations was "just a cover" by the demonstrators to conceal their "real intention, which is to keep things as normal among illegal immigrants in the country." Similarly, Neil Cavuto suggested that the pro-immigration demonstrators' U.S. flags were "just a prop" and "just a ploy to win America's support." [Your World with Neil Cavuto, 4/10/06; 4/11/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigration is an "invasion"

Buchanan: Illegal immigration is "an invasion of the United States of America" and "[t]he whole world is coming." On MSNBC's Hardball, Buchanan claimed that the influx of undocumented immigrants into the United States is "not immigration" but "an invasion of the United States of America" that is "coming not only from Mexico," but "from the whole world." He reiterated: "The whole world is coming." [MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, 5/15/06]

Savage: "This is an invasion by any other name." Savage said, "We, the people, are being displaced by the people of Mexico. This is an invasion by any other name. Everybody with a brain understands that. Everybody who understands reality understands we are being pushed out of our own country." [The Savage Nation, 3/27/06]

Buchanan: "This is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history." In State of Emergency, Buchanan wrote of immigration: "This is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history." He also wrote: "We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the deconstruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted." [State of Emergency]

Right-wing rhetoric: U.S., Mexico are in a state of "war"

Tancredo: [W]e are at war with Mexico, in a way." On Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, WorldNetDaily.com columnist Tom Tancredo -- then a Republican congressman from Colorado -- said, "[I]n a way, we are at war with Mexico, in a way. I'll say it in this way: Mexico is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country. They are part of the problem. They are doing what they are -- in fact, they are creating situations along that border using their own military to protect drug trafficking into the United States, pushing their own people into the United States for a variety of reasons. It is an invasion. It is an act of aggression." [Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, 6/26/06, transcript from the Nexis database]

Beck sidekick Gray: "[W]e are in a war with Mexico right now." Pat Gray, who is now a co-host of Glenn Beck's radio show, appeared on Beck's then-CNN Headline News show and claimed that "we are in a war with Mexico right now." After Beck agreed that "we better wake up soon," Gray responded: "[O]r we're going to wake up dead." [CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, 9/25/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigrants are fundamentally altering American culture or way of life

O'Reilly claimed to have exposed the "hidden agenda" behind the immigrant rights movement: "the browning of America." O'Reilly claimed that during his Fox News show, guest Charles Barron, a New York City councilman, had revealed the "hidden agenda" behind the current immigration debate. O'Reilly told his radio listeners: "[T]he bottom line is Charles Barron said last night is there is a movement in this country to wipe out 'white privilege' and to have the browning of America." But in the interview, Barron at no point claimed that he and other advocates for immigrant rights are motivated by a desire to force white Americans into the minority -- despite O'Reilly's repeated efforts to provoke such an acknowledgment. [The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 4/12/06]

Beck: "[I]llegal immigrants are attacking our culture, and our way of life." On his then-CNN Headline News show, Beck said, "[A]t the very least, illegal immigrants are attacking our culture, and our way of life. They are not melting into our melting pot -- they're here for the cash." He later said, "I mean, we've got all these threats coming in from overseas, but the simplest way is for us to lose the culture of the West is just to do nothing and let illegal immigrants not melt in and take the culture away from us." [Glenn Beck, 8/24/06]

Buchanan: "They're not welcome to come here and insult the symbols of our country, and that's what these outsiders have done." On Scarborough Country, Buchanan said that a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is "a provocation and an insult" and that immigrants are "not welcome to come here and insult the symbols of our country, and that's what these outsiders have done." Buchanan then said that the Spanish recording is "a good thing in this sense: The American people are awakening to the character of these people." [Scarborough Country, 5/1/06]

Matthews: Republicans "have a right to fear" a "cultural change" that would result in their hometowns "becom[ing] overwhelmingly Mexican." On Hardball, Matthews claimed that House Republicans who had passed a bill that would apparently have criminalized undocumented immigrants, their employers, and those who provide aid to them "have a right to fear" a "cultural change" that would result in their home states and towns "becom[ing] overwhelmingly Mexican." Matthews was responding to a suggestion by guest Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, that "the Republicans who passed the House bill" are "afraid" that the United States will soon have "a majority Latino population." Matthews later said, "It's not my point view necessarily," before suggesting that "90 percent of this country" agrees with the "viewpoint" that "I didn't move to Mexico; Mexico moved to me, and I'm complaining about it." [Hardball with Chris Matthews, 3/30/06]

O'Reilly: "[Y]ou're on a nice block ... and then the house next to you is turned into an illegal alien Club Med." On his radio show, O'Reilly said:

You've got the folks who don't have emotion invested in it, other than the farmers down and the ranchers down on the border are going -- as the lady just called up, [caller] -- say, look, I got garbage in my -- on my ranch every day. I mean, I'm under siege. They have emotion invested in it. But those of us up here don't.

Unless you live in a town, like Farmingville, Long Island -- we went over this before -- where you bought a house, you spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars, you're on a nice block, your kids are happy, and then the house next to you is turned into an illegal alien Club Med. And this happens all over the country. [The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 3/27/06]

Buchanan: "I think what's coming is the complete balkanization of America." On Hardball, Buchanan said, "I think what's coming is the complete balkanization of America, and I'm afraid it's going to be by ethnicity and culture, and language, and every other way. ... And so, then, it's not like the country you and I grew up in, Chris, whereby we were monocultural. We were monocultural." [Hardball, 6/5/06]

O'Reilly wondered whether children of Mexican immigrants in U.S. "have any kind of traditional value system" or are "setting up Acapulco North." On his radio show, O'Reilly wondered whether children of legal and undocumented immigrants from Mexico who are attending school in the United States "have any kind of traditional value system at all, vis-à-vis what America used to be," or whether they are "taking their Mexican values, because most of them are Mexicans, and, you know, basically setting up Acapulco North." [The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 8/15/06]

Buchanan: "You're going to have a giant Kosovo in the Southwest, which de facto is going to secede." On Scarborough Country, Buchanan said: "[Y]ou cannot absorb 40 to 60 million more people. You're going to have a giant Kosovo in the Southwest, which de facto is going to secede from this country." [Scarborough Country, 6/5/06]

Buchanan: Immigration will turn U.S. into "a polyglot boarding house for the world, a tangle of squabbling minorities." On CNN's The Situation Room, Buchanan warned that "[w]e'll become a polyglot boarding house for the world, a tangle of squabbling minorities." He continued: "The problem with the immigration, basically -- let's take Mexico -- is these folks are breaking the law, first. Secondly, they're coming in huge numbers, like no other group before. Third, they're from a contiguous nation. Fourth, 58 percent of Mexicans believe the Southwest belongs to them. Fifth, the Mexican government is pushing them in here, and it's got a political and ideological agenda." [CNN's The Situation Room, 8/28/06]

Right-wing rhetoric: Immigration reform is part of plot to institute "North American Union"

"North American Union" is an absurd conspiracy theory. Right-wing media, including Dobbs, have obsessively warned that elements in the U.S. government are secretly plotting to merge the United States with Mexico and Canada in a "North American Union" similar to the European Union. During the June 21, 2006, edition of his CNN show, Dobbs stated that "the Bush administration is pushing ahead with a plan to create a North American union with Canada and Mexico" and later asked: "Do you think, our question is, maybe somebody should take a vote if we're going to merge Canada, Mexico and the United States as the leaders of the three countries are attempting to do with the security and prosperity partnership? Yes or no. Cast your vote at LouDobbs.com." Dobbs' CNN colleague Suzanne Malveaux later described the North American Union rhetoric as "conspiracy theor[y]." [Lou Dobbs Tonight, 6/21/06]

Corsi: "North American Union ... was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy." Jerome Corsi, co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, wrote in a column that "President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy. Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico." [HumanEvents.com, 5/19/06]

WND's Farah linked Bush guest-worker proposal to plan by "one-worlders" to merge U.S., Mexico, Canada. Appearing on a radio show, WorldNetDaily founder and editor Joseph Farah claimed that the "one-worlders" of the Council on Foreign Relations have a plan to merge the United States, Mexico, and Canada by 2010 and suggested that Bush's proposed guest-worker program is part of this plan. Farah said, "Sometimes, the conspiracies are right." [American Family Radio's Today's Issues, 4/4/06]

Buchanan: Vicente Fox's "ultimate goal" is making Mexico and U.S. "basically part of the North American Union." On Lou Dobbs Tonight, Buchanan said, "The government of Mexico is pushing its poor and unemployed into the United States to ease social pressure on itself. Secondly, they get $16 billion in remittances back to Mexico. Third, it is awoken to the idea that it can reannex the American southwest, which it used to hold, linguistically, culturally, ethnically and socially, not militarily by pushing all these people in there and creating a gigantic fifth column in America." Buchanan added: "The ultimate goal of Vicente Fox is the erasure of the border between the United States and Mexico. He has said as much and to make the two basically part of the North American Union in which Mexico will get ... a constant flow of cash from the wealthy USA and La Reconquista is the objective." [Lou Dobbs Tonight, 9/5/06, Nexis transcript]

Other hate speech and outrageous(...)

The culture clash between social games and core gamers was on full display at GDC. I have been called a traitor to the cause of core gamers, even. At the awards show, when a Zynga rep claimed the social games award for Farmville and did a little bit of recruiting from the stage, he was not only booed, but someone shouted out, “But you don’t make games!” This is a common sentiment out there in the usual gamer haunts.

I have many many thoughts on all this — and I have been posting some of them in various places when discussions arise.

Yes, Farmville is a game. It just requires fairly little skill compared to games for “advanced” gamers. But by any reasonable definition of game, it fits perfectly.

You have to make choices (they are strategic choices rather than real-time, but so what? Games have a long tradition of slower play). The choices require knowledge and skill (the skill is what gets derisively called “spreadsheet gaming” by the cognoscenti, but that’s a brush that EVE Online and other MMOs have been tarred with too). You have to prepare for the challenge. You can screw up. You get rewarded for doing well, etc.

It may seem elementary to those who can juggle complicated business sims, but think of it as the training wheels version for novices to that genre, and you won’t be far off. I think people who didn’t play games in the early days forget that the level of complexity they enjoy today is a phenomenon of the last ten years, a symptom of typical genre development. Social games are more advanced than most of the games made from 1970 to 1988.

Yes, social games truly are social. They just work on somewhat different modes than real-time synchronous games do. Instead of rewarding real-time teamwork the way that group combat in an MMO, playing on a soccer team, or being a member of a chorus line does, they reward asynchronous behaviors.

Most specifically, there is a lot of exactly the sort of weak-tie social design that was intrinsic to Star Wars Galaxies and Asheron’s Call: stuff around gifts, networks of mutual benefit, etc. More, they are exploring some of these things in a deeper way than MMOs do (because MMOs fall back on the synchronous crutch). Which is more indicative of social ties, a user who logs in once a week for a raid, or a user who logs in every day to send every friend a gift? The answer is not straightforward, if you dig into social networking data.

Yes, it is arguably even an MMO. The core activity is single-player, but the features around gifting, fertilizing, helping build structures collaboratively, etc, are all massively multiplayer techniques. Oh, they are not yet truly virtual worlds, though some of them do feature real-time chat, and more will over time, because in many many cases it is a value-add of a feature.

Long ago, I posed the question of whether American Idol was an MMO. And in that post, I said

It’s surprising, in a way, how little collective action matters in most MMOs. Here’s a medium that allows it better than any other game type, and yet we still see fairly little collective action — and when we do, it’s raids — arguably, exactly the wrong sort of collective action to really play to the strengths of what virtual spaces can do, precisely because what MMOs offer is spaces with thousands in them, not spaces with a few dozen.

Well, here we are. Collective action is starting to matter in the social games, and it’s going to matter more, not less precisely because it is an assumed core premise of the genre.

No, social games are not what we think of as a virtual world. But as I said the other day, that definition is evolving.

Yes, social games make money. Do some Googling, people! And no, it’s not all from scams.Yes, there are shady practices. But not all games use them, and if they do, it is less every day as the market gets cleaned up. And even when they do, they are not the bulk of the money.

Social games are not just a fad. There have been a lot of comparisons to things like motion control, 3d imaging, and so on. But back in 2008 there were Gamasutra articles about whether retro-looking gaming was a fad; before 3d graphics got good enough, there were questions about whether it was a fad… the key thing to look at here is whether there are underlying technical and social factors that are pushing development in a particular direction.

In the case of retro looks (which are now a firmly established aesthetic), the answer lay in the somewhat complicated fact that a younger gamer sees all previous aesthetics side-by-side and does not judge their quality based on technology, the way that older gamers do. A push towards innovation and artistic intent in game design called forth the ghost of the 8-bit era, and the pixelated look became an identity badge. Tech helped this along — the rise of Flash as a common game development platform resulted in a “Flash aesthetic” driven by the display limitations that today we see in console games such as PixelJunk Eden and Patapon.

In the case of 3d, the march of technology simply made it work over time, and it evolved from gimmick to tool. This may yet happen with 3d displays as well, or motion control.

In the case of social games, you have to look at the overall context too. As I have been saying for quite some time, all games are becoming connected experiences. And it turns out that social networks are becoming the glue. They are sweeping away all the “gamer-only” networks that so many companies started.

The value in these networks lies in the connectivity to friends, the easy distribution of content across the social graph, the web accessibility, and so on. These are things that we now take for granted. The genie is not going to go back into the bottle.

Now, is the investment level going to change? Absolutely. The white-hot heat around the segment will definitely subside as everyone gets used to the fact that the market is here to stay.

No, social games won’t turn into core games. This is one of the misconceptions that AAA developers often have as they try to establish themselves in the market. It is absolutely true that social games are going to grow more sophisticated over time. But they will do so by growing further along the direction they have already been going.

If you look at the AAA game world today, you can trace just about everything in it to the early core gamer market. Video games got going with sports, dragons, robots, guns, jumping & climbing, and cars. Those were the first big ideas. And here we are now, decades in, and they are still the big ideas. Many other ideas have come along since, but somehow they have always been quirky, “outside the mainstream” — like, say, when Rollercoaster Tycoon, or Guitar Hero, or The Sims came along. The only way something like “playing house” can possibly be “outside the mainstream” is if there’s a subculture in charge.

Well, social games are here and they managed to get themselves established largely without reference to those tropes. As a result, they have a different set of starting premises. Many of the things that were “quirky” are “normal” and vice versa. Central design tropes  include cooperation rather than competition; asynchronous rather than synchronous play; social dynamics; and a very different set of core cultural references. There’s more.

What will happen over time is that this new audience will grow in sophistication. They already take for granted all of the elements of a farming game, for example. You can think of the farming game as equivalent to any other genre, and replete with design tropes that are exactly equivalent to conventions like WASD, hit points, skill point allocation, rocket jumping, and tank-nuker-healer, if you like.

All that is going to happen is a recapitulation of design history, only with a new of new assumptions embedded in the games:

• a far broader set of cultural references.
• a new and different set of core artistic choices driven by different rendering technology
• a fresh and exciting set of design paradigms built around asynchronous sociability and large-scale weak-tie “guild” structures — hoo, is there a design essay lurking in the difference between a guild and a neighbor ring...!
• a whole new set of business models and practices

What this boils down to is that social games will grow along those axes, and not magically turn into what core gamers today consider to be core games. It’s a mistake to think that the game development industry is going to manage to magically make this audience fall in love with sports, dragons, robots, guns, jumping & climbing, and cars.

But there’s hope for core gamers nonetheless: These games are the new home of “worldy” games, in some ways. And they are bringing neglected genres back to life.

Social games are going to push boundaries in design areas that are currently neglected. A renaissance in simulation and strategy games is likely, and I don’t think it is an accident that so many prominent AAA strategy game developers are in social games now.

If what you have craved is greater user agency and impact on a persistent world, a greater sense of community and economic interdependence — those are features that are intrinsic to this new market. As an example, I would point out that there was a core MMO game that many of the readers of this blog loved that had a farming game where you had to check in every few days to collect your stuff and decide what to try to harvest next. And it’s wasn’t Farmville. It was Star Wars Galaxies. In many ways, the features that were seen as oddest or least “gamer-like” in the worldy MMOs are going to be among core features in the social games: housebuilding, shopkeeping, farming, dancing, dress-up, even hairdressing. Right now, these are one-to-a-game. But one possible direction of development is that they not be.

I have thoughts on what all this means for the core games we know and love, but I’ll leave those for another day.

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Ever since she brought me into the world, my mother has taught me many things, namely to not only learn from my own mistakes, but also from the mistakes of others.

Microsoft clearly never spoke to my mom, as evidenced by its decision to leave cut, copy, and paste capabilities out of the new Windows Phone 7 Series platform, at least in the early rounds. If they had paid Mom a visit, they would have been told -- after being offered some tea, of course -- to fix all the boo-boos of earlier smartphone operating systems before releasing their own updated version. She would have advised them to understand the rough spots encountered by competitive offerings, and do everything in their power to avoid them.

I think my mom's ticked with Microsoft

Okay, perhaps she wouldn't have worded it precisely that way, but I'm certain you get my point regardless. I'm sure I speak for my mother (and likely, a whole bunch of you, too) when I say I'm disappointed in what may either be Microsoft's "decision" to leave three of the most basic functions in the history of computing out of its just-announced OS, or as we seem to be learning now, it's having overlooked the whole subject in the planning phase.

This morning, blogger Long Zheng reports he was told by Microsoft that cut and paste is something the company hopes will find a place in Windows Phone 7 Series at some future point.

Now, the initial excuse the company provided was (and is, and quite likely always will be) insufficient and, if we're being brutally honest, more than a little arrogant: "Most users, including Office users, don't really need clipboard functionality." So what's the story now, after Long's report: "We asked users to give us some details, and they decided, most users do like clipboard functionality, just not right at first?"

While I realize OS vendors have to make countless decisions about which features should and should not make it into the final product, I bristle at Microsoft's tone -- a bit like US Congresspeople explaining why the public option for health care is a really, really, really good idea, but just not for the bill being discussed today. If Microsoft (or, for that matter, if anyone at all) can learn anything from Congress this year, it's that people don't like being told by The Powers On High what they are supposed to want or not want, and when.

It isn't Microsoft's place to tell users that they won't ever need to cut, copy, or paste anything for as long as they own their new devices. It's the kind of blow-off statement that sounds shockingly like Apple when it introduced the iPhone in 2007, similarly stripped of any ability to cut-and-paste. After a sea of complaints from users and reviewers who actually do know what they want, and don't need to be told, Apple wisely retro-baked that functionality back into the OS two years later. While the controversy didn't seem to dent Apple's market share, Microsoft hardly has the benefit of Apple's marketing prowess or brand equity.

Apple aficionados were willing to cut the company some slack, and ended up buying iPhones anyway. Microsoft aficionados are a lot harder to find, they won't line up around the block in the middle of the night, and they'll probably pick up an Android-powered device as an alternative. With Windows Mobile...oops, Classic devices retaining this feature, and Windows Phone 7 Series lacking it, the inconsistency is difficult to understand. However you slice it, there will be no slack for Windows Phone 7 Series, and it's more than a little shocking that Microsoft couldn't see this coming.

Teaching us all a lesson?

In fairness to Microsoft, its new mobile OS includes a data detection service that automatically recognizes common elements like addresses and phone numbers. Within this context, perhaps there's room to make the argument that cutting and pasting is yesterday's news. This technology, popularized with the first mass-market GUIs in the early '80s, and perpetuated in virtually every desktop and mobile OS ever since, could be one of those things that we hold on to like a security blanket. And like the ratty old blanket, perhaps there's a time when we need to let go. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is doing us all a favor by pushing it out the door.

But consumers are a fickle lot. And what's makes sense from a strategic or historical perspective isn't necessarily right from the point of view of the guy forking over the dough for your new wonder-product. Never mind that Microsoft may, in fact, be "right" in concluding that we no longer need cut, copy, and paste on our mobile devices. Customers, after all, are always right, even if their choices make them look like circus clowns who do their makeup in the dark. It's their mistake to make and their shame to live down. Even if the vendor believes otherwise, it's not the smartest business strategy to call them idiots and make fun of their smudged face paint.

Casting off a legacy

In fairness to Microsoft, I somewhat understand where the company is coming from. Previous versions of its mobile OS suffered from what I like to call Shrunken Windows Syndrome. Instead of being built from the ground up as truly mobile-enabled solutions, they seemed to be pared-down versions of Microsoft's flagship desktop OS products. Microsoft's philosophy seemed to be that if it worked on a PC, it would work on a smartphone or a PDA, too. I used a number of Windows CE and Mobile devices over the years, and I never got used to navigating a full-on Start menu, complete with cascading sub-menus, with a stylus or thumb keyboard. It was as if Microsoft never actually used its own mobile products out in the field, and never listened to users who complained bitterly that its design philosophy simply didn't work out there.

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten the mobile message. It's built from the ground up as a modern, competitive, lean and efficient mobile OS. I suspect the cut-and-paste omission is the company's way of overcompensating for years of heavy Windows legacy on its mobile products, a hackneyed way to break with its past.

Memo to Redmond: There are other ways to accomplish this.

It's only temporary

If Long Zheng's reporting is accurate (and it often is), I'd wager that v7.1 will have copy and paste...that is, if Microsoft doesn't cave to the firestorm earlier and release it as an on-the-fly fix. Either way, the only way Microsoft will ever gain traction in the mobile OS market is by listening to both customers and prospective customers and integrating their suggestions -- well, the value-added ones, at least -- into successive generations of their product.

This is a gaffe Microsoft simply can't afford. Its mobile OS is in the fight of its life as Microsoft battles the Apple/Google/RIM juggernaut on one hand and its own declining mobile market share on the other. Beyond the numbers, there's the risk that the market has already given up on Microsoft succeeding as a mobile vendor. That psychological factor (something Palm knows all too well) is something Microsoft needs to fix by reinstating cut-and-paste support. Now wouldn't be soon enough.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Und wieder bricht eine Schallmauer ein: Mit der Western Digital Elements bieten Händler erstmals eine externe 3,5-Zoll-Festplatte mit 1,5 Terabyte Speicherplatz für unter 90 Euro an.

Charlie Angus proposes amendments to the Copyright Act that “will ensure that artists are getting paid for their work, and that consumers aren’t criminalized for moving their legally-obtained music from one format to another.”

The so-called “iPod tax” is resurfacing in Canada with news that New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus has introduced a a pair of proposals to amend the country’s Copyright Act.

One would extend the Private Copying Levy, first established back in 1997, to portable media players like iPods. Specifically, C-499 says the tax will cover any “device that contains a permanently embedded data storage medium, including solid state or hard disk, designed, manufactured and advertised for the purpose of copying sound recordings, excluding any prescribed kind of recording device.”

This would finally give consumers some much needed control over legally purchased products while simultaneously opening up a new revenue stream for artists in the downloading age.

“Artists have a right to get paid and consumers have a right to access works,” he says in a press release. “This is what balanced copyright is all about. The government has declared their intention to update the Copyright Act. If they are serious then we need to update key elements of the act like the copying levy and fair dealing.”

The other is a “fair dealing” motion (M-506) that would allow reasonable use of copyrighted materials for innovation, research and study.

It states:

29. Fair dealing of a copyrighted work for purposes such as research, private study, criticism, news reporting or review, is not an infringement of copyright.

Angus said that after years of talk, it’s time parliamentarians got serious about updating our copyright laws.

“Digital locks and suing fans are not going to prevent people from copying music from one format to another,” he said. “The levy is a solution that works. By updating it, we will ensure that artists are getting paid for their work, and that consumers aren’t criminalized for moving their legally-obtained music from one format to another.”

However, the renowned Canadian academic and law professor Michael Geist, though “supportive” of the fair dealing proposal, finds the iPod tax troubling. Why? Because the device definition is vague enough that it could also cover smartphones and PCs.

“While the CPCC (the private copying collective) may not target all of these devices, there is nothing in the bill that prevents them from doing so,” he says.

Geist also worries that since video recordings are not included it could mean the introduction of a new tax at a later date, pushing it perhaps to upwards of $100 or more.

Most important of all, though a noble experiment it is, the iPod tax would only cause consumers to purchase iPods and other devices covered by the tax outside of Canada where it didn’t apply. As for how much it would be one can only guess, but the last time around was in the $75 range.

The Canada’s Private Copyright Collective (CPCC) has been pushing for a similar levy as far back as 2007, but those efforts were defeated early last year by the country’s Federal Court of Appeals.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

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http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/online_education_and_blogging

Joshua Kim writes:

The best preparation I received for blogging was teaching online. One of the most important elements for running a successful online course involves presence. The instructor must be “present” in the course discussion boards and blogs. Teaching online gave me tons of practice in writing rapid, hopefully thought provoking, discussion and blog posts around the curriculum and the student’s work. Much has been written about how teaching online can improve on-ground teaching. I’d add comfort with blogging to the benefits online learning.

Is the ability to quickly produce prose that (at least sometimes) may interest a reader the sort of skill that we want to cultivate in our students? The importance of rapid, persuasive writing is growing as blogs and other social media displace other forms of communication. We all need to learn to make our case, to persuade, to make arguments based on evidence – and to do so in a limited attention economy. For all of us, both writes and readers, time is our scarcest commodity.

Perhaps participating in online courses provides students the same practice with rapid and persuasive writing as teaching an online course. The same behaviors that make for a good online instructor, namely the willingness to be active and engaged with the asynchronous communication tools, are also those behaviors of a successful online student. An online course is all about collaboration and interaction. The best students post persuasively, briefly, and often.

I would venture to say the best preparation I received for online teaching is blogging! Quick posts sharing links and commentary – something bibliobloggers have long been doing – translate perfectly to the way I interact with my online and hybrid classes. I also think the blogging activities have helped my students with their writing – just afeeling, no evidence yet, but it might be a good thing to study.

[In his latest column for GameSetWatch, UK writer and journalist Fraser McMillan discusses Valve's seminal first-person action title Half-Life 2, examining and revisiting the smart design decisions behind the classic game.]

I've just finished Half-Life 2 for the first time. It has taken me three attempts - once on Xbox 360 and twice on PC - to see Valve's defining game to its conclusion. That this relatively minor feat took so long is entirely my fault, ironically a product of the impatient wish to blast through as quickly as possible.

Two and a half years after I initially booted it up, the end credits rolled. The final, completed playthrough attempt lasted less than a week, and I'm glad I bit the bullet and experienced it this way.

Not that it was anything like a chore; by taking things at my own, or, more accurately, Valve's pace, I had time to absorb the world and explore its nooks and crannies, my eyeline expertly guided by the seemingly omnipotent hand of City 17's creators.

I finally understand why everyone has waxed lyrical about Gordon Freeman's second adventure for the last half-decade or more. Conducive to this is the fact that my tastes have matured, and my thoughts on games delved into deeper, more analytical territory. Articulating why I liked X and disliked Y is no longer particularly hard in most cases.

When I can't explain these, it's usually because I was baffled by just how terrible each element of the design was. On a handful of occasions, though, it's a sign that what I played was so confoundingly fantastic that my critical brain didn't even attempt to kick in. This is the position I'm in now. Deconstructing Half-Life 2 feels wrong in a way, like teasing a dog with some food only to scoff it yourself. It shouldn't really be done because it's against the nature of the beast and could cheapen the experiences of all involved. It's not even entertaining; just perversely, cruelly compelling.

Half-Life 2 is designed so as to not appear designed. That's ostensibly odd, but makes a surprising amount of sense. A lot of effort has been poured in to create the impression of effortlessness. Most of what we do, see or hear in Half-Life 2 feels distinctly of our own volition. If not in the act itself, the mere observation of incidental detail off the critical path is a component of the illusion of presence and agency, even though each individual's journey will, in the end, be effectively identical to other players'.

This facet of its design makes itself known from the instant the G-Man's face fades out to reveal an unexceptional train car. As well as evoking the timeless introduction to its predecessor, this scene serves to create the illusion of reality; of an ambient world that exists beyond just our interfacing with it.

Airborne robots which we'll later come to despise fly by the carriage, inspiring curiosity. A fairly normal looking landscape passes increasingly slowly as the vehicle comes to a halt. Our two co-passengers occupy themselves, one waiting eagerly for the doors to open as the other sits opposite, dejectedly staring into nothingness. We can talk to the latter or leave him be. As we're let off, the former sighs; "Well, end of the line."

With this sequence, Valve instantly and very tangibly contend that though this remains a Half-Life game, it's one of an evolved character. They turned the first-person-shooter on its head with that first title, Citizen Kane-ing the genre to an extreme degree, but the setting allowed the team to concentrate on a specific goal without concerning themselves much with the outside world.

Forced to emerge from the secluded comfort zone of Black Mesa, the sequel establishes itself as both successor and pioneer from the off, and continues in this mould for much of its duration. It should be noted at this point that it's not perfect but - Freeman's basking in the adulation of every NPC notwithstanding - Half-Life 2's universe is absolutely convincing.

Not through the kind of emergent systems that make Far Cry 2's war-torn state so wonderfully plausible, but in an entirely different and equally valid manner, one that single-handedly authored a rigorous and, ultimately, highly successful template for linear video games that is still being ignored to this day.

It's all in creating an illusion of substance and openness and propelling the player through it at whatever pace is required. A lot of elements of Half-Life 2 feel dynamic in nature despite being at least somewhat intended or even heavily scripted.

The odd set-piece is obnoxiously predictable, but in a franchise that lives and breathes on these cues it's astounding how sparse these are. Allow yourself to be engulfed in the sly deception and these fade into such insignificance it's laughable. Many modern releases remain patronisingly transparent without anything close to such a sustained barrage of both subtle and overwhelming instances.

It's equally incredible when you realise just how paper thin the mirage is. Hang around too long in one spot or put on the blinkers and dash through and it's all too easy to break, but even when compelled to do so it's tough not to be rapidly, subconsciously re-immersed. We're the hapless cobras rising from the basket as Valve expertly play their tune, transitioning from staccato to legato when appropriate.

The reminders that this is a fully realised world continuously flow towards us, and by alternately sticking to convention and craftily subverting our expectations of what video games are, Half-Life 2 capitalises on our gullibility to this effect. How clever I thought I was by navigating over to the beach hut using painstakingly arranged miscellany and my trusty old gravity gun. Empty, besides some assorted junk and a small item crate. The ammunition it contained was already maxed out in my inventory.

At first I was scandalized; how dare you, Valve, how dare you so gratuitously undermine my efforts? Then I realized that my impression of this place as a cohesive, unified land that simply exists had been augmented. My irritation morphed into unabated admiration. Why does there have to be an explicit reward for venturing into a hidden or ostensibly unreachable spot? My prize was much more interesting.

Merely paying attention also pays dividends both in terms of the strength of the universe and the narrative. Peering through the view-box in the door you'll see something that often leads to far more questions than answers, but which also fleshes out the core experience. Keeping your eyes peeled means you can witness things that have the capacity to alter your perception of the City and its inhabitants or prepare you for a challenge ahead.

It's unlikely that many players have seen all of these, but both static and active environmental incidentals can frighten, inform, bait or warn. Some allow us to begin filling in the gaps ourselves in imagined ways. We begin to construct an image of who lived in this cell by its contents, what prompted that piece of graffiti or what unspeakable things must have befallen that rotting corpse in the viaduct. It happens infrequently enough to make the player feel special, as if they're the only one to have observed such details. Again, these can prompt the same reaction as a totally unscripted emergent event, but within a much more solid framing than any games of that particular propensity are likely to achieve any time soon.

I've noticed that actual examples of the virtues I've cited are somewhat lacking from this article. Perhaps, though, this stems from the broader effect of believability that Half-Life 2 so decisively realises. It already presents the most attractive science fiction setting yet seen in our medium, but the manner in which it shapes our experiences in such gentle and minor ways is its crowning achievement.

My failure to cherry pick the most impressive of these idiosyncrasies is indicative only of its intransigent formula. Memories of my time with the game are not necessarily of these individual pieces, but of the great chunks of the puzzle they gelled into. Firm authorial control in games, Valve have proven, can also relax when properly timed. The most important lesson we can extrapolate from Half-Life 2 is that if you're going to force us down a linear path, you should do your utmost to make it feel as far away from this reality as possible. Maybe it's obvious advice, but it's one that far too few have taken onboard over the years.

Publication Date: 2010 Mar 14 PMID: 20228792Authors: Chapman, J. A. - Kirkness, E. F. - Simakov, O. - Hampson, S. E. - Mitros, T. - Weinmaier, T. - Rattei, T. - Balasubramanian, P. G. - Borman, J. - Busam, D. - Disbennett, K. - Pfannkoch, C. - Sumin, N. - Sutton, G. G. - Viswanathan, L. D. - Walenz, B. - Goodstein, D. M. - Hellsten, U. - Kawashima, T. - Prochnik, S. E. - Putnam, N. H. - Shu, S. - Blumberg, B. - Dana, C. E. - Gee, L. - Kibler, D. F. - Law, L. - Lindgens, D. - Martinez, D. E. - Peng, J. - Wigge, P. A. - Bertulat, B. - Guder, C. - Nakamura, Y. - Ozbek, S. - Watanabe, H. - Khalturin, K. - Hemmrich, G. - Franke, A. - Augustin, R. - Fraune, S. - Hayakawa, E. - Hayakawa, S. - Hirose, M. - Hwang, J. S. - Ikeo, K. - Nishimiya-Fujisawa, C. - Ogura, A. - Takahashi, T. - Steinmetz, P. R. - Zhang, X. - Aufschnaiter, R. - Eder, M. K. - Gorny, A. K. - Salvenmoser, W. - Heimberg, A. M. - Wheeler, B. M. - Peterson, K. J. - Bottger, A. - Tischler, P. - Wolf, A. - Gojobori, T. - Remington, K. A. - Strausberg, R. L. - Venter, J. C. - Technau, U. - Hobmayer, B. - Bosch, T. C. - Holstein, T. W. - Fujisawa, T. - Bode, H. R. - David, C. N. - Rokhsar, D. S. - Steele, R. E.Journal: NatureThe freshwater cnidarian Hydra was first described in 1702 and has been the object of study for 300 years. Experimental studies of Hydra between 1736 and 1744 culminated in the discovery of asexual reproduction of an animal by budding, the first description of regeneration in an animal, and successful transplantation of tissue between animals. Today, Hydra is an important model for studies of axial patterning, stem cell biology and regeneration. Here we report the genome of Hydra magnipapillata and compare it to the genomes of the anthozoan Nematostella vectensis and other animals. The Hydra genome has been shaped by bursts of transposable element expansion, horizontal gene transfer, trans-splicing, and simplification of gene structure and gene content that parallel simplification of the Hydra life cycle. We also report the sequence of the genome of a novel bacterium stably associated with H. magnipapillata. Comparisons of the Hydra genome to the genomes of other animals shed light on the evolution of epithelia, contractile tissues, developmentally regulated transcription factors, the Spemann-Mangold organizer, pluripotency genes and the neuromuscular junction.post to: CiteULike

Publication Date: 2010 Mar 12 PMID: 20230834Authors: Stocks, B. B. - Konermann, L.Journal: J Mol BiolThe current work employs a novel approach for characterizing structural changes during the refolding of acid-denatured cytochrome c (cyt c). At various time points (ranging from 10 ms to 5 min) after a pH jump from 2 to 7 the protein is exposed to a microsecond hydroxyl radical (.OH) pulse that induces oxidative labeling of solvent-exposed side chains. Most of the covalent modifications appear as+16 Da adducts that are readily detectable by mass spectrometry (MS). The overall extent of labeling decreases as folding proceeds, reflecting dramatic changes in the accessibility of numerous residues. Peptide mapping and MS/MS reveal that the side chains of C14, C17, H33, F46, Y48, W59, M65, Y67, Y74, M80, I81, and Y97 are among the dominant sites of oxidation. Temporal changes in the accessibility of these residues are consistent with docking of the N-and C-terminal helices as early as 10 ms. However, structural reorganization at the helix interface takes place up to at least 1 s. Initial misligation of the heme iron by H33 leads to distal crowding, giving rise to low solvent accessibility of the displaced (native) M80 ligand and the adjacent I81. W59 retains a surprisingly high accessibility long into the folding process, indicating the presence of packing defects in the hydrophobically collapsed core. Overall, the results of this work are consistent with previous hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX) studies that proposed a foldon-mediated mechanism. The structural data obtained by .OH labeling monitor the packing and burial of side chains, whereas HDX primarily monitors the formation of secondary structure elements. Hence, the two approaches yield complementary information. Considering the very short time scale of pulsed oxidative labeling, a future extension of the approach used here to sub-millisecond folding studies should be feasible.post to: CiteULike

Publication Date: 2010 Mar 12 PMID: 20230832Authors: Kumaraswami, M. - Newberry, K. J. - Brennan, R. G.Journal: J Mol BiolThe multidrug-binding transcription regulator, BmrR, from Bacillus subtilis is a MerR family member that binds to a wide array of cationic lipophilic toxins to activate transcription of the multidrug efflux pump gene, bmr. Transcription activation from the sigma(A)-dependent bmr operator requires BmrR to remodel the nonoptimal 19 base pair spacer between the-10 and-35 promoter elements in order to facilitate productive RNA polymerase binding. Despite the availability of several structures of BmrR bound to DNA and drugs, the lack of a BmrR structure in its unliganded or apo, (DNA and drug-free) state hinders our full understanding of the structural transitions required for DNA binding and transcription activation. Here, we report the crystal structure of the constitutively active, unliganded BmrR mutant, BmrR(E253Q/R275E). Superposition of the ligand-free (apo BmrR(E253Q/R275E)) and DNA-bound BmrR structures reveals that apo BmrR must undergo significant rearrangement in order to assume the DNA-bound conformation, including an outward rotation of the minor groove binding wings, an inward movement of the helix-turn-helix motifs and a downward relocation of the pliable coiled coil helices. Computational analysis of the DNA-free and DNA-bound structures reveals a flexible joint that is located at the center of the coiled coil helices. This region, which is composed of residues 94 through 98, overlaps the helical bulge that is observed only in the apo BmrR structure. This conformational hinge is likely common to other MerR family members with large effector binding domains, but appears to be missing from the smaller metal-binding MerR family members. Interestingly the center-to-center distance of the recognition helices of apo BmrR is 34 A and suggests that the conformational change from the apo BmrR structure to the bmr operator-bound BmrR structure is initiated by the binding of this transcription activator to a more B-DNA like conformation.post to: CiteULike

De : Billy O'BrienAvec : Essie Davis, Sean Harris

Un troupeau de bétail qui pourrait bien plonger la ville dans un terrible cauchemar...

© 2005 Element Filmsb - Frog Films - The Bureau

The Internet is huge but it's a hodgepodge of hundreds of thousands of smaller, private networks, connected through thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and dozens of backbones operated by the large Telcos and service providers.

Moving data from one end of the Internet to the other can mean traveling across many different computers and different networks. Some of these computers and networks are old and inefficient while some are modern and very efficient.

They are all tied together into what we call the Internet, through a collection of standards. These standards determine how a packet of data can reach its destination, complete and undamaged.

Many large Internet companies own large chunks of the Internet through building their own data centers, networks, backbones, etc. This helps to keep their costs down.

Google is big...

Google is one of those companies that owns a large chunk of the Internet. It has more than 50 data centers around the world; it builds its own servers; it operates its own backbones that shuttle huge amounts of data across the world; it develops its own software for managing all of its data; it keeps banks of servers in the data centers of ISPs so that it can cache data closer to delivery; and more, much more.

How big is Google? asks Arbor Networks. It's a rhetorical question because Arbor knows, it sells network control and monitoring hardware used by the largest ISPs and corporations.

Arbor says that Google is very big:

I mean really big. If Google were an ISP, it would be the fastest growing and third largest global carrier. Only two other providers (both of whom carry significant volumes of Google transit) contribute more inter-domain traffic. But unlike most global carriers (i.e. the “tier1s”), Google’s backbone does not deliver traffic on behalf of millions of subscribers nor thousands of regional networks and large enterprises. Google’s infrastructure supports, well, only Google.

Based on data from 110 ISPs collected in the summer of 2009, Google was responsible for as much as 10% of all Internet traffic.

If a company wants to compete with Google on a large scale, the costs of shuttling data packets around, whether they be Twitter packets or video packets, starts becoming very important at these large scales.

Arbor says:

The competition between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other large content players has long since moved beyond just who has the better videos or search. The competition for Internet dominance is now as much about infrastructure — raw data center computing power and about how efficiently (i.e. quickly and cheaply) you can deliver content to the consumer.

And that's why Google has focused on building the most efficient, lowest cost to operate, private Internet. This infrastructure is key to Google, and it's key to understanding Google.

The cost of aluminum...

Google will locate its massive data centers where electricity costs are low, such as where there is hydro-electric power. There's a shortcut to finding these locations, look for places where there are aluminum smelters -- these use huge amounts of electricity.

[Back in 2005 I was tipped off by a source that Google was looking at places for new data centers, related to aluminum smelters. But I was unable to write about it directly. I put the scoop in the form of a cryptic sentence and called it a "Crypto-Scoop."

GOOG is prophetic, rather than superstitious,
about its interest in places of power,
associated with the 13th building block of the Original Design.

(Aluminum is the 13th element in the periodic table - a fundamental building block of the Universe.) I have no idea if anyone worked it out :)]

Power and computing costs...

Google knew back then that electric power costs would be important in determining the cost of data centers. Today, it is high on the list of priorities for all data centers. That's also why it has been investing in power generating technologies, such as wind, sun, and geothermal.

It has a key goal of generating electric power from renewable energy sources at a cost less than coal-generated electric power. That would be an incredible achievement.

Always lower costs...

Google always focuses on finding the lowest costs even though it can easily afford to pay more. Google builds its own servers, made from off-the-shelf low cost components, with cheap hard drives. It has developed its own software that deals with component failure and moves work loads across huge numbers of servers. Managing failure is built into Google's data center operating systems.

It has bought up lots of "dark fiber," at a very low cost. This is optical fiber that hasn't yet been 'lit' but it is in the ground, in place, ready to be hooked up.

Because Google has so much fiber, it operates one of the largest backbones in the world. It also means that it can trade bandwidth with others.

Large Telcos and ISPs have peering arrangements with each other. This means that if they have the capacity, they will carry extra traffic for each other. These peering arrangements mean that Google's bandwidth bill for all that YouTube video is zero.

It's difficult to believe, but your bandwidth bill to watch a YouTube video is more than Google's. Because of bartering through peering agreements, its only cost is in maintaining its own networks and backbones.

Skipping the last mile...

Google still needs ISPs and Telcos for the last mile, to deliver its various services and products, to the end user/consumer. But it has been experimenting with going direct.

It has experimented with free municipal Wi-Fi, and more recently, it is setting up high speed bandwidth to communities with 500,000 people or less.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Google wants to become an ISP or a Telco. It is not a service organization and it doesn't want that headache, but it does want to spur ISPs and Telcos to develop high-speed data connections, so that it can deliver future products and services that require high speed data.

The Internet is becoming ever more Google's...

Googles growth means that it is building a much faster, and much more power efficient, and much greener Internet. And through peering agreements, it is carrying much more than just Google traffic, it is quickly, and quietly becoming an important carrier for all Internet traffic.

There are huge indirect benefits from Google's work that make the Internet a better service for every Internet user.

Essential facility...

What will this lead to? It's going to lead to regulatory scrutiny because Google will be increasingly seen as an 'essential facility' vital for the economies of regions, nations, and entire trading blocs.

Increased scrutiny by governments, and regulatory bodies, will make it more difficult for Google to execute on its business strategies. Combined with the increased scrutiny of Google's acquisitions by the Federal Trade Commission, Google's future ambitions will become ever more restricted.

Google sees the writing on the wall. It has boosted how much it spends on lobbying in Washington. [Antitrust Heat -- Google Spends Millions To Influence Washington - SVW]

A layer cake business...

Google might decide that its value lies in its incredibly efficient infrastructure, which is far more efficient and lower cost than the Internet as a whole.

Once you have the lowest cost infrastructure, you can layer and scale other business services on top. Such as payment systems, basic voice and data services, security systems, and commerce platforms (advertising).

Google might decide it doesn't need to own a Facebook, Twitter a Yahoo, or an Amazon -- when it can host all the data packets. It can carry and trace a data packet from source to destination and back again -- it can mine all that transactional data. That's extremely valuable.

It's a little known fact that Google keeps all of its data, all transactional data. It erases part of the identifiable meta data, but that can be reconstructed. [Google Keeps Your Data Forever - Unlocking The Future Transparency Of Your Past - SVW]

That transactional data is incredibly valuable, and even though we can't unlock it to its fullest value today, Google is working on it.

No umbrella...

By being able to build the most efficient, private Internet, Google makes it extremely difficult for any competitor to challenge it. There is no 'price umbrella' that competitors can use.

For example, there used to be lots of mainframe computer companies because IBM, the largest mainframe computer maker, used to charge very high prices. There was a substantial price umbrella set by IBM that sheltered competitors, and allowed them to sell IBM compatible mainframes and still make a good living.

You can see similar price umbrellas in other business sectors.

Google has made sure that by building the most efficient, lowest cost infrastructure, there is no price umbrella that could be exploited by competitors. It's more like a manhole cover, try to get under it, and you fall into a hole...

This strategy means that Google leaves money on the table, it could make more money over the short-term by creating a price umbrella. Instead, it has chosen a long term business strategy which doesn't give competitors any toehold, let alone an umbrella.

Its stock ownership is set up so that founder's stock has ten times the voting rights of public shares, this allows it to avoid shareholder pressure to pursue short-term business goals.

This all adds up to make Google into a truly formidable force, and one that continually amasses greater powers and influence. 'Do no evil' is the very least it can do.