Just another nerd.
According to Slashdot story, police at Kent State confiscated computers owned by several students living in a dorm because police thought this cheesy Starcraft clan site that the students maintained was the web site for a violent criminal conspiracy.
It’s amazing given how prevalent computers are that there is still such a vast gulf between wired and non-wired folk.
Jon Katz thinks the pervasive cameras an microphones at the XFL premier were too much. According to Katz, “this may be a good example of how technology can take us places we don’t really want or need to go.” I think what Katz misses and what other critics and supporters of the XFL have missed is that the XFL’s competition is not the National Football League.
The XFL’s real competition is “Survivor” and other pseudo-reality programs. Do people balk at seeing cameras invade people’s personal lives? Then explain the popularity of “Survivor” or its knock offs like “Temptation Island” or even reality-based shows such as “Cops.”
As Business 2.0 noted in a profile of the XFL, the NFL has been moving in the XFL direction in recent years. Vince McMahon says he’s going to mic dozens of players? Hmmm, suddenly Monday Night Football starts equipping a player with a microphone and replaying the highlights at halftime. Then CBS courts disaster when it put mics on several players at the beginning of the Super Bowl only to have them utter a string of expletives (hadn’t they heard about seven second delays?)
The difference is that the NFL existed prior to television and sees itself as an entity completely independent of its media coverage (which is sometimes taken to absurd levels by sports writers and commentators who go on and on about sports as if it is anything but entertainment). There’s no way that the NFL would allow the sort of access the XFL is based upon — at least not until it is forced to by the economic situation, and given the relatively strong ratings of the NFL in recent years, that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
The problem the XFL faces it that unlike other reality shows, which are usually heavily edited to create compelling story lines, the XFL occurs live in real time (allowing for the delays to edit out the cursing). The only other completely live reality show on NBC, “Big Brother,” also had incredibly high initial ratings before it sank like a stone. Of course it didn’t have the sort of structure that a football game has and it didn’t have the constant display of juvenile sexual fantasies either.
Whether or not the XFL will satisfy American’s craving for reality shows or whether it goes down in an already oversaturated market remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that there is a market for such voyeuristic, intrusive shows.
There’s police corruption and then there’s police corruption. The Hartford Courant reports that former Hartford, Connecticut, police officer Julio Comacho admitted in court that he “handcuffed a woman, drover her in his cruiser to a construction site and raped her over the trunk of the car.”
Why would Comacho openly confess to the rape? Because investigators have connected him to criminal sexual acts with at least two other women and this was part of a plea agreement. But that’s hardly the end of Comacho’s legal troubles. Comacho’s girlfriend, Rosa Delgado, was murdered and beheaded and the 4 year-old daughter of Delgado and Comacho disappeared. Guess who the prime suspect is?
There are always going to be bad apples on a police force. Is it fair to condemn the Hartford police as a whole for the actions of a single rogue cop? Perhaps not, but according to the Courant, Comacho is the seventh former Hartford officer to be convicted of on-duty sex crimes.
In fact the Hartford police department has been the subject of a wide ranging corruption probe initiated by the state attorney general’s office that included numerous criminal sexual assaults (in one case officers told a suspected prostitute that they would arrest her if they didn’t perform sex acts with the officers), botched cases that sent innocent people to jail and possibly even several murders. In 1999, the FBI was reportedly investigating Hartford officers’ connection to at least three murders, including the Delgado case.
The problem in Hartford is largely the same as it is in other areas that have had problems with police corruption — a complete lack of accountability at the highest levels of police administration. The officers charged in the recent corruption probe brought to 16 the number of officers charge with crimes since police chief Joseph F. Croughwell Jr. took over in January 1994. Yet after the story broke, several Hartford city council members were quick to defend Croughwell for reducing crime in Hartford.
Detective Stanley Wasilewski, however, laid the blame at Croughwell’s feet telling the Courant, “I blame Croughwell. Problems here just fester. There have been complaints involving cops and prostitutes going back before 1990 and nothing gets done. Supervisors have stopped turning [wayward subordinates] in because discipline is selective — it depends on who you are.”
Some officers within the police department apparently told a grand jury that the entire department was lax about filing paper work and incident reports, and that records related to the activities of the officers accused of misconduct were destroyed.
Sources:
Ex-City Officer Admits Rape. Josh Kovner, The Hartford Courant, February 6, 2001.
Police Chief’s Job Safe, Officials Say. Eric M. Weiss, The Hartford Courant, April 8, 1999.
Hartford Police Inquiry Expands. Josh Kovner, The Hartford Courant, April 9, 1999.
…computer games were all text and we liked it. We loved it.
Seriously, I’ve seen a lot of sites posting their “Best Computer Games of 2000” lists, and frankly most of the games featured are crap. Several magazines and web sites put Shiny’s Sacrifice on their list. Phuleeeze. The game is incredibly gorgeous, but pretty much unplayable due to interface problems. Diablo II? I guess if you were one of the lucky folks who didn’t have your character nerfed or assassinated.
I don’t know if it was the best game, period, but the best game I played in 2000 was EA Sports’ Front Office Football 2001. You want graphics? Go play Madden 2001. FOF2K1 is almost entirely text. It does have some pretty splash screens and interface, but a lot of fans of the game actually used third party tools to rip out the graphics.
What FOF2K1 does have is the best sports management simulation to date. Draft players, deal with free agents, try to get fickle fans to turn out to the stadium, try to work within the NFL’s impossibly difficult salary cap formula. There’s a great deal of possible automation — you can turn scouting duties over to your scouts, hire coaches to draw up game plans, but realistically if you’re going to get this detailed into football you’re going to want to do it all yourself. This is the sort of game where you’re going to spend 45 minutes in the training camp screens deciding which plays you want your team to concentrate on.
One of the best things about FOF2K1 is the reporting. You want stats? This game has stats everywhere. The only drawback is there is no online version yet so you can’t go head to head with people over a few seasons — EA is developing an online version, however, as part of a content deal with AOL.
The real amazing thing is that the game is largely the work of a single programmer, Jim Gindin. He’s currently at work on a much anticipated college version of the game, and perhaps other sports (suggestion — while there are baseball management simulations, there has yet to be a decent basketball game in this genre). I can’t wait to get my hands on that.
In December 2000, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations released a report on cereal production in Western Africa that highlighted some interesting data on food production in Africa — namely the highly variable levels of said production.
In 1999, cereal production in Western Africa hit record levels thanks to excellent weather and relatively limited problems with pests. As typically happens when food product exceeds records, the 2000 cereal crops are expected to be dramatically lower, with production for the region estimated to decline to up to 15 percent back to average levels for the region.
This region is made of up nine countries, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. Here’s how total cereal production breaks down for these countries as a whole from 1999-2000,
Year Cereal Production (thousands of tons)
1991 – 9,500
1992 – 8,800
1993 – 8,800
1994 – 10,000
1995 – 9,100
1996 – 9,200
1997 – 8,100
1998 – 10,800
1999 – 11,200
2000 (forecast) – 9,500
Meanwhile in the coastal countries of West Africa, which include Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, cereal production is expected to be just under record levels. Cereal production is up everywhere in Western coastal Africa except in countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone which face ongoing civil wars.
Year Ceral Production (thousands of tons)
1992 – 25,700
1993 – 26,100
1994 – 26,800
1995 – 27,800
1996 – 29,100
1997 – 29,400
1998 – 27,300
1999 – 28,600
2000 (forecast) – 29,200
(The FAO does not explain why it starts this series at 1992 rather than 1991).
Source:
Preliminary Assessment of 2000 Cereal Production in Western Africa. Food and Agricultural Organization, December 2000.
Great Britain’s Home Secretary, Jack Straw, announced recently that, in light of the overwhelming level of harassment directed by animal rights activists against the directors and staff members of Huntingdon Life Sciences, the government would seek new police powers to deal with the threat posed from activists. Saying that some of the protesters are, “frankly evil,” Straw said the government was considering introducing a new measure to keep the names and addresses of directors and staff members at animal research facilities secret.
Animal rights activists in Great Britain widely distributed the names and home addresses of HLS staff members, who were then subject to harassment up to and including death threats, fire bombing of vehicles, and assaults. Straw affirmed that the British government believes that animal testing is necessary for medical advances.
“The measures will allow the police to take action to prevent extremists protesting outside people’s homes and will also strengthen the law against the sending of malicious communications,” Straw told Parliament.
Meanwhile, police in Britain believe that a series of letter bomb attacks on shops in Great Britain could be the work of animal rights activists. In January, ten nail bombs were sent to farms, pet food stores, charities and other animal-related enterprises. On January 31, for example, a letter bomb was sent to the British Heart Foundation, and the woman who opened the letter had to be treated for shock. In all, four people have been injured including a six-year-old girl who suffered serious leg injuries and an estate agent who had a bomb explode in her face and may lose her sight as a result.
Sources:
British police link letter bombs, blame activists. Tom Armitage, Reuters, February 1, 2001.
Straw vows protection for animal research staff. Ananova, February 5, 2001.