The Dexter, a mountain breed from Ireland, is perfect for cattle-keeping on a small scale, but other breeds are being artificially created to compete with it, including the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus
Miniature cattle – family pets that provide milk – Boing Boing
If Georgia can plug that hole, get creative with their air defense assets, kill a whole mess of Russians, and force this thing into a winter overtime—I wouldn’t be surprised if the international community forces a peace favorable to the Georgians.
In the immortal words of the film Six-String Samurai, only one man could kill that many Russians.
Will Shetterly has an interesting post about boing boing’s handling of comments and something called (god help us all) “disemvoweling.”
“Xeni owes BB’s readers a new post so the readers who fell for this hoax will know the truth.”“If you have any respect for AI, please make a new post to let all BB readers know the truth.”
Avram Grumer explained at #257, “Will, I’ve partially disemvoweled your cts #246 and 248. Do not presume to tell Xeni (or the other Boingers) what to post about.”
disemvoweling and the law: copyright, fair use, and defamation « it’s all one thing
Shetterly’s a bit of a crank, and his comment style is even a bit trollish, but he has interesting things to say, and in this case, he’s brought to my attention this thing called disemvoweling. Which has to be among the stupidest things ever to emerge from the reeking bowels of the internet.
Per Wikipedia:
In the fields of Internet discussion and forum moderation, disemvoweling (also spelled disemvowelling), which appears to model the word disemboweling, is the removal of vowels from text either as a method of self-censorship, or as a technique by forum moderators and newsgroup operators to censor unwanted posting….Regarding the use of disemvoweling to police internet blog comment sections, Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, says of the practice, “the dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized.”
That is spectacularly stupid. If someone is being a misanthrope in your comments, they already look ridiculous. Removing the vowels from their comment makes you look ridiculous.
Shetterly takes the whole thing a bit far down the legal road, to well past the absurdity mark, but he does have a valid point. If a comment bothers you, delete it, dmbss.
Went to a reading and signing by Charles Stross. I bought a copy of his new book, Saturn’s Children, and I also took along my battered copy of The Atrocity Archives.
The event was in San Francisco, at Borders. Did I mention lately how much I dislike going to San Francisco? I don’t dislike it all equally, though. I especially hate downtown. Everywhere, waist-deep in tourists and yuppies.
But the reading was good, although I lack the late-Heinlein background to appreciate some of the references. I’ll avoid providing spoilers. The Q&A session was good as well; Stross said that there will be at least one more Laundry book, and dropped a hint regarding one of the historical figures who will feature. Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before we actually see this book in, you know, book form. The Q&A also covered such features as the rise and fall of empires (British and American to be specific), the singularity, and how editors feel about it when you write a book in the second person future. Stross is both hilarious and almost offensively knowledgeable.
Danger Room regularly challenges my resolve to not pay attention to what’s happening in the world outside my immediate sphere. Bastards.
Worse, Rwandan troops and rebels win the DRC were using prisoners-of-war and children to mine for the precious metal. “Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms,” former British MP Oona King told the Independent.
Inside Africa’s ‘PlayStation War’ | Danger Room from Wired.com
This will almost certainly not be as awesome as it should be.
A favorite children’s foodie book heading to the big screen – Slashfood
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