Idiots of the Day/Week/Month



Nuclear Fusion Paves Way for Inexhaustible Energy



The idiots aren't the people trying to build the reactor, mind you. It's the people referenced in the last two sentences: "Environmentalists have reacted strongly against the project. Greenpeace has described the project as a nonsense money waste."



Ok, so we have the possibility of creating an efficient reactor, using the most common substance in the universe, thats only by-product is Helium, an inert gas. And what does Greenpeace do? Complain. Ok, then let's go to the next best thing: Nuclear fission. Highly efficient (could power the entire city of New York off of 6 reactors), very safe (if constructed properly), a nearly inexhaustible fuel supply, and relatively clean (the by-products are put into containers and stored away from cities, as opposed to being pumped into the atmosphere above cities, like a coal reactor). Oh, but the environmentalists don't like those either. So let's go to natural gas? Oil? Coal? Nope, nope, nope; environmentalists say you can't use anything that burns non-renewable fossil fuels (despite the fact that natural gas is actually manufacturable). Ok, wind power. Uh, no. That kills the local bird wildlife. Solar? Nope; toxic chemicals are used in the manufacturing of the photoelectric cells. Um... than what then? Obviously, the environmentalists want us to go back to sitting around fires in caves and trying to decide if rocks are edible. Oh wait, can't do that as the fire would involve cutting down trees, and eating the rocks would probably kill some endangered type of moss that's growing on it.



It just goes to show that environmentalists are less concerned with the environment and more concerned with stopping all scientific progress (boink).

Your Thoughts?



This... frightens me.

Homes may be 'taken' for private projects - U.S. News - MSNBC.com



Of course, we have the usual suspects in favor (Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer). I still find that odd, as this seems like the perfect cause for the liberals to go rushing to: the evil private-industry capatilists paying off the local government with the promise of tax dollars, and in exchange getting permission to bulldoze people's homes and building hotels, health clubs, and office buildings.



Well, I suppose it's not the first time a local government screwed people out of their homes (*cough cough* LAX and Westchester *cough cough*)

Area Man Couldn't Care Less About Reliability-Centered Maintenance.

OMAHA, NE - According to sources close to him, area man Joe Belland doesn't give "a rat's ass" for reliability-centered maintenance. During a recent training session, Belland was reported to state "and as you can see, by implementing a preventive maintenance policy with planned maintenance every 62,800 hours, and inspections every 4400 hours, we have increased the availability of this component and reduced the total lifetime cost by, ah s***, who gives a crap about this?"

It was reported that Belland then left the room to "watch the faucet drip or anything more interesting than this crap."

Idiot(s) of the Day/Week/Month

Actors Weigh Strike Over Video Game Voices

Yet another in a long series of pointless strikes. I think this one would be even lamer than striking over having to pay for healthcare.

I agree with Fargo. On the one hand, you have a group that contributes 99% of the product, works 90 hours a week (no exageration) for years to finish said product, gets paid sub-standard wages for their skill set, and are treated like sweatshop workers, and on the other hand, you have a group that contributes 1% of the product, works just a couple days, and is paid $273 an hour. So who's thinking of striking, demanding a share of the profits? The latter group! That makes perfect sense.

Y'know, I think my purpose in life is to form the first-ever white-collar software programmer's union. Then we can make the same demands as other unions, like free health insurance, yearly increases to the already-high minimum wage, and double overtime for working more than 8 hours.

As examples of the poor conditions video game makers work under, a group of former EA employees are suing EA for not paying overtime, even if their hours doubled a normal working week. EA claims that they don't have to pay overtime, under a California law that exempts businesses from paying overtime to certain "specialty" employees. However, that same law states that the entertainment industry, specifically mentioning film, theater, and television, does not fall under that "specialty" category.

In other news, Ubisoft sued a group of its former employees for leaving Ubisoft's Canadian division to work for EA Montreal. This violates the non-competition clause of their contract, which forbids employees from working at any video game developer within a year after working for Ubisoft.

So essentially the publishers can force you to work obscene hours for little pay, but you can't quit to work for another game developer. Sounds fair. For them.

Oh yeah, my sources:
http://goty.gamespy.com/2004/news/
http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/action/splintercell/news_6076727.html

This is also an interesting discussion:
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?postid=70676

No, no, no!
Yes, yes, yes

Dang, that Vader's good at Wheel of Fortune...

But he really doesn't like Roller Coasters.