You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell! Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Back in July I mentioned a particularly bizarre piece of spam I'd received. Wired takes a look at the phenomenon of the "time-travel spammer," and notes that some even went so far as to jokingly offer to supply the requested material. Now the guy's father is worried that he may have taken some more unscrupulous respondents up on their offer.
This BBC article on the latest game technology available for Japanese cell phone indicates that the pint-sized portables offer the power of the original PlayStation -- and prove it with a port of the original Ridge Racer game.
Game makers have been offered a glimpse of the latest in games for mobile phones, with insights into the sort of things keeping Japanese thumbs busy.
They include virtual pets which are fed by photos, pronunciation puzzles and games that are the quality of PlayStation One titles.
"The Japanese market is years ahead of Europe and the US," explained David Collier of Namco, one of the most successful Japanese mobile game publishers.
The games currently popular on mobiles in Japan hint at the sort of thing you could be playing on your phone in the future.
He told his audience of industry professionals that the quality of the games was improving all the time, as handsets pack more and more computing power.
One of the games on show was the console racing title, Ridge Racer, which has been adapted for the mobile.
"You now have a PlayStation One game running on a mass market handset in Japan, delivering a fully interactive 3D game," said Mr Collier.
But gamers are being asked to pay a premium for such high quality games. Ridge Racer is being sold in Japan for $11, about double the price of other titles.
Other console games may soon appear on handsets, especially the older arcade type.
"The game mechanics of arcade classics are perfect for mobile phone as they were designed for three-minute plays," explained Mr Collier.
Some of the games available seem designed to appeal to teens. Mr Collier showed off a virtual pet game from Panasonic, which is reminiscent of the tamagotchi craze.
The game uses the handset's camera to create food. When the pet is hungry, it shows a picture of a type of food like an apple.
You then have to take a picture of something red, which the phone interprets as an apple and feeds to your pet.
The game also lets you send food to a friend's pet via an infra-red connection.
Another virtual pet game uses a fingerprint scanner built into a handset to let your animal know that you are going to play with it, sending it into throes of joy.
Other games also make use of the camera on handsets. Mr Collier demonstrated a game which creates a fighting character based on your photo.
It interprets your image to give your character speed and power. You can then send this to a friend's mobile to do battle.
Another game uses a phone's microphone for educational purposes. The game is intended to help children with their pronunciation and works by comparing what they say with a sample on the handset.
Some of these games may sound typically Japanese, but Mr Collier believes the trend towards doing more with your handset is global.
"Mobile culture is a mass market thing," Mr Collier told the Game Developers Conference being held in London this week.
"It has gone mainstream. Everyone is checking their phones all the time and there is no reason why that should not happen here."
The Game Developers Conference Europe runs at London's Earls Court conference centre until Friday.
It is part of London Games Week, which brings together a range of industry and consumer events around the capital.
By the way, an version of the original Ridge Racer also comes with Namco's popular PSX game Ridge Racer Type 4. The design team had hoped to achieve a frame rate of 60 fps with that game, but was unable to with the amount of detail R4 boasted. However, they went back and tweaked the original game to that sizzling frame rate and included it on a bonus disc.
President Bush's campaign — expected to dwarf Democratic hopefuls by raising $200 million or more for the primaries, with no GOP rival — is appealing for donations by portraying Bush as a fund-raising underdog who won't have enough cash to defend himself against Democratic attacks.
"Democrats and their allies will have more money to spend attacking the president during the nomination battle than we will have to defend him," campaign chairman Marc Racicot wrote in the fund-raising e-mail sent Wednesday night. "If you need more convincing the president needs your help, consider what the Democrats are saying. The race is just starting, but their rhetoric is already red-hot."
Bush has set several fund-raising records, including the most collected for a presidential primary and the most raised at a single event. [Emphasis added.]
Racicot's e-mail attributes quotes to several Democratic presidential hopefuls criticizing Bush.
Among them, Racicot says former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stated that Bush might suspend the 2004 election, called Bush "reckless" and "despicable," compared him to the Taliban and said Bush was trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare, public schools and public services.
"This ugly, overheated rhetoric shows Democrats will say anything and stop at nothing to defeat this president," Racicot wrote.
Asked if the comments attributed to Dean were accurate, Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright was incredulous.
"Compared him to the Taliban? Absolutely not. Suspend the 2004 election? What is that about?" Enright asked. "He said his (Bush's) tax policies were reckless. Obviously all this was taken out of context."
Enright said it was surprising that "a guy who has portrayed himself as the fund-raising Superman" was now describing himself as an underdog.
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel defended the letter, saying it expects a close race and "we're raising the resources to pay for grass-roots activities and to get the president's message out."
Bush's fund raising has broken records. In 2000, he bypassed public financing and its spending limits during the primaries and raised more than $100 million with help from more than 200 Bush campaign "pioneers," volunteers who collected at least $100,000 each for him.
The 2000 Democratic hopefuls, including eventual nominee Al Gore, took public financing and were limited to about $40.5 million in primary spending.
Last year, Bush set a single-event record by raising more than $30 million at each of two galas for the GOP, surpassing the previous mark of $26.5 million set in 2000 by then-President Clinton and Vice President Gore at a Democratic Party fund-raiser.
Bush also is skipping public financing for next year's primaries. With the individual contribution limit doubled to $2,000 under the new campaign finance law, he is widely expected to raise more than $200 million. He has no challenger for the GOP nomination.
Bush began fund raising for his re-election effort in mid-May and had taken in $35 million by the end of June, the most recent figures available.
The biggest fund-raiser among the nine Democratic hopefuls from January through June was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, whose campaign collected $16 million.
"George Bush's campaign coffers need more money like his wealthy contributors need more tax cuts at the expense of Social Security, health care and a balanced budget," Kerry campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Racicot's e-mail says Democrats "will have the all-out help of some leaders in the AFL-CIO, many wealthy personal injury trial lawyers, and well-funded liberal special interests. The hundreds of millions of dollars they will spend could make the race close."
He noted the $10 million that multibillionaire George Soros pledged to a new Democratic-leaning get-out-the-vote group. The organization, America Coming Together, plans to raise $75 million from labor groups and others to try to defeat Bush.
ACT is among several groups Democrats' supporters have formed to help the party compensate for the loss of "soft money," corporate, union and unlimited donations the nation's new campaign finance law bars the national parties from collecting.
The GOP raised soft money too, but Democrats were more reliant on it.
In the first half of this year, allowed to raise only limited donations from individuals and political action committees, the GOP's three national committees raised $115.7 million, compared to $44.2 million by their Democratic counterparts.
Fred "Piro" Gallagher, manga-ka of the popular online comic MegaTokyo, has announced that he's entered into a new agreement to publish the comic's second collected volume. (See my Destroy All Monsters review of the first MegaTokyo collection.) And he's landed a big one: Dark Horse Comics. Here's the text of the press release making the announcment.
The wildly popular web comic that spawned a best selling trade paperback has found a new home! Fans and friends of the Megatokyo web comic have come to love the characters and their offbeat adventures. Whether they are entangled in a fantasy gaming scenario, saving Tokyo from devastation by rampaging zombies, or taking awkward and disaster-filled steps towards a meaningful relationship, we get to experience Tokyo through their many unique and drastically different points of view. Those new to the series may find familiar emotions and a dialogue that is eerily similar to their own. Megatokyo is a graphic story that speaks directly to the hordes of manga/anime and gaming fans in America, and it's a long overdue conversation.
Megatokyo tells the story of two Americans, Piro and Largo, who fly to Tokyo on a whim only to end up unable to afford tickets home. Rife with references to video game and anime culture both here and in Japan, it is a story that contrasts the cultures, the characters, and their own perceptions of what is around them.
Megatokyo Volume 2 by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston is scheduled to arrive January 2004 with a retail price of $9.95.
Dark Horse will also reprint Volume 1 some time in the future (perhaps the Ironcat Entertainment edition will prove a collectors' item...fortunately, you can still order it from Amazon.com). In the rant space accompanying today's comic, Piro commented:
Needless to say, I am very excited about working with Dark Horse Comics. Years ago, when the idea of printing Megatokyo was not something I took seriously, I was sometimes asked what publisher I thought would be best for MT, my answer was always Dark Horse. I've always felt that the quality of their books were exceptional, so much so that it was one of the 'Ah My Goddess' volumes that I used as a model for what I wanted my books to look and feel like. With Dark Horse's quality standards, I know that both book 2, the re-issue of book 1, and any subsequent projects I do with them will more than satisfy my expectations and give the MT readers books they will enjoy owning.
I feel honored and humbled by the attention that Megatokyo has attracted over the past few months. I've managed to get a very interesting overview of the comics and publishing industry, and I think that now is not only an exciting time for myself and my works, but for other owner-creators as well. The success and popularity of graphic novels and related works has a future that goes beyond just Japanese produced manga/comic titles. I feel that there is a lot of great work out there, and that people far more talented than me will also be able to put their work in front of a lot of people. All they need to do is keep climbing, and never mind the scruffs and scrapes - the view is worth it.
Personally, I'm very excited at this news and looking forward to reading the Dark Horse edition come January.
Kevin Drum reminds us that Sunday is the deadline for registering for the national do-not-call list and having the blocking take place immediately (according to the comment thread, registering later than Sept. 1 apparently carries a three-month delay). To register, click here or call 888-382-1222.
Update: What the heck, I went ahead and registered. It's amazingly easy -- I just provided our phone number and email address; the process took less than five minutes.
CalPundit points to a great Al Franken quote explaining what's really wrong with the media (hint: it isn't some laughable notion of "liberal bias"):
As for mainstream journalists, "I think they're intimidated by charges of liberal bias. There are so many other biases in all the mainstream media: pack mentality. Sensationalism. Sex. Conflict. Getting it cheap. Getting it first instead of getting it right." To ask whether the establishment press has a liberal bias "is like asking whether al Qaeda uses too much oil in their hummus."
Bingo. And, I might add, the "intimidated" charge sticks pretty well too. I don't blame conservatives for working the refs, of course, but it's a little disingenuous of them to howl like they do when it doesn't work, or for them to kvetch about "liberal bias" when the press doesn't perform their desired function of becoming a 24/7 right-wing propaganda machine.
Kevin Drum is also exactly right about the distinction between hard news stories and feature articles(and also, although he doesn't mention it, "news analysis").
E. J. Dionne's op-ed in this morning's Washington Post contains a key reminder that the stock market isn't the sole -- or even best -- indicator of the economy's health.
The simple truth is that the standard of living of most Americans depends on getting jobs that pay well. This means that unemployment matters not just for those out of work but also for those whose wages are depressed when too many people are competing for too few jobs. For most Americans, the best economic policy is still low unemployment. That's why the late 1990s produced income growth for the poor and the middle class as well as the wealthy.
An important fact to bear in mind as we wait and see whether recent signs of life in the economy translate to jobs and prosperity for all, or if unemployment only declines either because job seekers simply give up or accept low-wage, low-benefit, low-status jobs in the service sector.
Even as they boost their budgets for online advertising, major U.S. companies will be wary of e-mail marketing campaigns until the menace of unsolicited "spam" e-mail has been tamed, top industry officials said on Thursday.
"Our marketers are basically saying spam is killing (e-mail marketing)," Bob Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), told Reuters.
E-mail marketing "clearly will be muted until they have a greater degree of confidence that their messages will go through in the way that they want them to," he added.
But Liodice was quick to point out that he believes using e-mail as a legitimate marketing tool "will skyrocket" once spam is under control.
In the past, leaders in the advertising industry have trailed other trade and consumer groups who are pressing for tougher legislation and enforcement against spam.
That is changing, however, as companies invest more on online advertising. Concern has arisen about spam because e-mail is easily deleted by consumers angered by the explosive growth of the often deceptive or vulgar messages.
The ANA, which represents more than 300 leading companies, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, known as the "4As," are hammering out guidelines for using e-mail to market products and services credibly.
A nine-point proposal they have drawn up defines spam as "unsolicited, bulk, untargeted commercial e-mail," and tries to distinguish it from more legitimate, direct online marketing.
The proposal calls for commercial e-mail to be sent from working Web addresses, preferably ones which include a company or brand name to clearly identify the sender.
E-mail ads should have an easily located option which consumers can mark if they do not want to receive further mail, but the proposal does allow e-mail marketers to send targeted, unsolicited e-mail if a consumer has not "opted out."
O. Burtch Drake, president of the "4As," said most leading advertisers already abide by such rules.
He said the industry prefers formal recommendations for business practices rather than advocating a "do-not-spam" list similar to the "do-not-call" list for consumers who do not want to hear from telephone marketers.
"In the case of spam, if you make up a list of all the addresses, that becomes a pretty valuable list (for spammers to send more e-mail)," Drake said.
While advertisers still prefer other online marketing tools like paid search listings, direct marketers are keen on preserving e-mail for ads, especially if a "do-not-call" list dries up other avenues for reaching customers.
"I don't think we all recognized how big the problem was going to be until six to nine months ago," said Greg Stuart, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The IAB is also planning to develop e-mail ad guidelines, he said.
Stuart said some advertisers waited on the sidelines hoping that technology, in the form of spam filters, or legislation would be put in place to stem the tide of spam.
But a problem with spam filters is that they have blocked e-mail from companies with which a consumer wants to communicate.
One other problem leading to the proposals has been that new laws and stricter enforcement have been slow off the mark.
"Our marketers are basically saying spam is killing (e-mail marketing)"...whoa, man, that's heavy.
Destroy All Monsters has posted my review of Hong Kong director Cory Yuen's first Western-produced action flick, The Transporter, which was produced and co-written by veteran action filmmaker Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element).
A gallery (and another) devoted to the lovely and talented Loletta Lee, who starred in the Hong Kong flick Sexy and Dangerous. It was among a batch of DVDs I got inexpensively from HKFlix a while back, and I watched it last night.
An amazing gallery (more here) showing hail damage to a 737 that encountered a thunderstorm shortly after takeoff. The jet returned for an emergency landing and no one was injured.
