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Here's what some folks are saying about rpgKids, the role playing game for kids that everyone's talking about, featured on BoingBoing, Wired.com, and CNN.com!
@knight777: My wife said "best family time we've had in a long time"
@eljakod: my little guy is four and really loves the role playing aspects, gives him the chance to use his imagination in contextualized play
@dreadgazebo: This is an awesome system you guys, I was given the honor of play testing this new system and it's great. I played with a 4 year old, a 6 year old and a 9 year old (all boys) and they had a blast. It's the perfect balance of simplicity and creativity for the more diminutive versions of ourselves. The system provides a great architecture to springboard young kids into RPG's. Definitely worth grabbing a copy!
@Accidental_Rob: my 4 yr old LOVED it… Thanks for RPGkids!
SarahDarkmagic.com: Overall, I think it's a great game for young children. It provides just enough of a framework to give it some structure and order, while allowing the imagination to run free. To be honest, I'm half tempted to play it as an adult, for those times when we just want to play a game.
Dicemonkey.net: With the release of rpgKids 1.5, there's no reason not to get your kids into RPGs….. The game is a simple, straightforward role-playing game to teach kids concepts such as math, taking turns and rational thinking. It encourages the use gridded maps and miniatures, which I approve of, because I think it engages a child's tactile and visual senses.
NBNeil @ rpgnow.com: rpgKids is a fantasic product for getting young children into gaming. It uses very simple mechanics that make it easy for children to learn and play the game, but also helps strengthen their math skills.
Andrew @ rpgnow.com: I bought this on a whim and my kids love it. My oldest is 5 and can't get enough of it. His sister (just turned 3) loves listening to the story unfold and cheers the hero along. She also 'rolls' for the monsters. So simple. So much fun.
David: I just read through the book. Not only are the rules pretty tight for their simplicity, I really appreciate the blank grid page and the other maps included. Beyond running a game of RPGkids, I'd love to play the Frog Wizard story in D&D. It's really funny. Great work.
Mark G.: Please feel free to quote me! I hope other geek parents can enjoy this with their kids too. It was a great way for him to use his imagination, do some crafts, spend time with his parents doing something they like doing, and the basic math involved applying modifiers and comparing dice rolls is great for someone his age.
Gnome Stew: I'd recommend rpgKids to any gamer who wants to introduce their children to RPGs, even if they're a bit outside the recommended age. It's simple fun and easy, and lets your children see the fun of RPGs without complicated mechanics getting in the way.
RPG Musings: …I like where this game goes, and fully recommend it. If you have a young child that loves fantastical storytelling, this is one of your best options.
Mike @ datanode.net: To say we had an absolutely awesome time as my two girls led their two characters… against a pair of trolls is to put it mildly.
Wired.com's Geek Dad: rpgKids provides an experience that young children will absolutely love, and the time you will spend teaching them about gameplay, math and the power of storytelling is worth far more than the $2.99 price tag. Trust me.
Welcome to the rpgKids page here at NewbieDM.com. The first release of rpgKids last year was a big success. I received many emails about it, and blogs even went up related to parents playing it with their kids and introducing their small children to role-playing games for the first time ever. It was both a little humbling and flattering at the same time to see something I created getting enjoyed and played with like that.
I did have some minor issues with the game though, and felt a small revision was in order. That's why you see this 1.5 version of rpgKids. If you've played the game before, it's pretty much unchanged, except I took a few tweaks that people had been making and applied them to the rules. I also added a healer, which seemed to be needed.
If you've never played the game before, well here's a description in a nutshell: A very simple RPG consisting of opposed die rolls using a d12, while encouraging kids to think creatively, perform simple arithmetic, and have fun!
The fully bookmarked, 24 page PDF also includes funny and kid friendly hand drawn tokens for both heroes and monsters, character cards and a printable 1″ grid.
But that's not all, because it also includes a full introductory adventure, designed to show all the rules of the game at work, within the context of a fun quest.
All in all, it's not a bad deal!
rpgKids is suitable for kids from 4 years old, up until they can grasp a more complex game like D&D or some other rpg.
Here are some videos of my daughter and I playing the game earlier this year:
You can purchase the game right here via Paypal for only $2.99. Once it goes through, I'll send out a download link via email. It may be instant, or sometime later, as I have to do these one by one depending on when it's processed. I promise to be as quick as I can in sending the link out though, you have my word.
The game is available via RPGNOW as well, where you're able to download it instantly.
New Content!!!
And now, I'm pleased to announce the release of the rpgKids Adventure Pack 1, a collection of four fun adventures for the rpgKids game, exclusively available at rpgnow.com!
Included in the adventure pack are the following adventures:
- The Curse of the Sleepy Mist – The evil wizard Geleron has released a magical mist that has put the entire town of Springwell to sleep. Can the heroes of Springwell defeat him yet again and make everything right in Springwell?
- Trixie the Unicorn's Rescue – The fairies of the Evergreen Forest need help, as their unicorn, Trixie, has been taken prisoner by the evil goblins of the Dark Swamp. Can the heroes of Springwell find her and bring her home to her fairy friends?
- Rescue from Dinosaur Island – A group of explorers left on a boat to the mysterious Dinosaur Island but never returned. Can the heroes find them and bring them back home to Springwell?
- The Pirates of Seaweed Cove – It seems pirates have been attacking ships off the coast of Springwell's beach, teaming up with Shark‐Men from under the sea. Can the heroes stop the pirates and the Shark‐Men before everyone becomes too scared to go out on boats?
You can also purchase a bundle of the original rpgKids release, plus the Adventure Pack for only $4.99 (a $2 savings)! That's the game plus 5 adventures for less than a buck!


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Friday is a happy day for most, it being the last day of the working week and all, so I thought I'd share a bit of joy for you to take with you on your weekend. Here we have Maniac Girl with a Large Earring. I can imagine she was taking some photos for use with an identity card or passport and decided to make the last one a mad souvenir.
I found this unusual square format photobooth photo somewhere in the UK in 1992. Unfortunately I didn't make any note of the location of the find. On the back it is signed and dated in magenta ink and reads 12/6/92 (12 June 1992). The name could be Mon B but that is a wild guess. What a shame that it was lost! What fun that I found it!

subset: commoncrawl


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Why the commercial ebook market is broken
(Note: In the following rant, I'm sticking to American currency and prices because (a) they're relatively familiar to non-Americans, and (b) they're where I've got the hardest data. Not to mention (c) being where the market I'm talking about is — or isn't.)
I've been ruminating for a whole long time now about the dog that didn't bark in the nighttime world of publishing — the coming ebook revolution, which has been coming now for something like 20 years and counting without much sign of actually arriving.
In point of fact, ebook sales figures are dismal. At best, they tend towards 20% of hardcover sales by volume — and that's for ebooks that are available in open formats that are not tied to a particular hardware platform, and that are not crippled by DRM (digital rights management) encryption schemes that prevent users from reading them on more than one machine. DRM-infested ebooks sell an order of magnitude fewer copies, in many cases not even covering the cost of taking the existing typeset masters and saving them in an ebook format.
The performance of the ebook market is in fact piss-poor. It can be explained in part by readers' natural aversion to DRM (if you change mobile phone or laptop, why should your entire library evaporate?), but also in part by publishers' idiotic aversion to the idea of trusting readers.
When you look at the "pirate" ebook field, things are a lot livelier. There are any number of locations on the internet where you can grab hundreds or thousands of novels, for free! — albeit in violation of the authors' copyright. These books are either produced by scanning a paper copy and feeding it through OCR (optical character recognition) software, or by cracking the DRM on an encrypted ebook. Lots of people download books off the net, but one thing even the proponents of ebook DRM agree is that it doesn't seem to have had any economic impact on the sales of dead tree editions. In fact, there's a lot of evidence from research into music file sharing that people who use "pirate" ebooks actually buy more of the real thing. (Eric Flint volunteered this source: The Effect of File-Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis, by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strump, published in the February 2007 issue of the Journal of Political Economy.)
So what's going on?
Let me stick my neck out here, with an opinion that goes against the conventional wisdom in publishing circles.
In the pre-internet dark age, there was a subculture of folks who would get their hands on books and pass them around and encourage people to read them for free, rather than buying their own copies. Much like today's ebook pirates, in terms of the what they did (with one or two minor differences). There was a closely-related subculture who would actually sell copies of books without paying the authors a penny in royalties, too.
We have a technical term for such people: we call them "librarians" and "second-hand bookstore owners".
Library lending was tolerated by authors and publishers because it was widely accepted that in the long run, people who borrowed our books from libraries were more likely to read them than people who had no access whatsoever. And having read, they were more likely to become regular readers and to eventually buy — if not the books they'd already read, then the next one on. Library users were often poor, or casual readers, or young. I remember latching on to the local public library when I was five or six years old. I read my way through most of Andre Norton's childrens range before I was eight, and I certainly didn't pay for them. I couldn't pay for them; I didn't have enough pocket money to make a habit of buying books at anything approaching the rate I could read them until I was in my teens, and even then, I was mostly limited to second-hand paperbacks.
So, in the dark pre-digital age of the 1970s, I was an avid supporter of that period's equivalent of your demonic ebook pirates. And y'know what? I defy anyone to tell me I was wrong to do so. Or even to assert that it hasn't, overall, been a good thing for the SF field, because it got me into the habit of reading, and these days, with a disposable income, my biggest problem is finding bookcases to stick all the new hardbacks I've bought over the years since my teens.
Now, let's talk about ebooks.
I'm not going to flog the already-dead DRM horse; I've been there before and both sides of the debate are fairly well covered.
What I'd like to point out is that the economics of the commercial ebook market are sick.
Right now, many of the largest publishers charge a cover price for ebooks that is 80% to 100% of the hardcover price. Virtually nobody except Baen (and now a couple of other publishers who've dipped a toe in the Webscription market, and some self-publishers) is even thinking about trying to establish what an ebook is really worth in the market.
We know roughly what it costs to produce a book, and we can point to the areas where ebooks are cheaper than paper editions (no dead trees and ink, for one thing; no warehousing or distribution for another) and more expensive (downloads, website maintenance). But we don't really know what an ebook is worth to the readers, because the market that could give us meaningful feedback on pricing has been strangled in the crib.
My take on ebooks is that they are — and should be seen as — the cheapest form of disposable literature. They're not cultural artefacts (pace Cory Doctorow); you don't buy them in signed, slipcased, limited editions. They're like stripped mass market paperbacks without even the value-added of doubling as wood pulp wall insulation once you've read them.
Now, there exists within writing and publishing circles a neurotic fear that sooner or later (probably In Five Years' Time — that seems to be the normal window) a cheap digital paper based ebook reader will come along, that makes the experience of reading text on a screen no different from the experience of reading a lump of dead tree stitched inside a piece of pigskin. And, as the horror story has it, we will be In Big Trouble, because the pre-existing availability of pirate ebooks will lead to enormous proliferation and a total crash in the value of books. Some pretty smart people believe this story, and the result has been to give it more credibility than it actually deserves. And it leads them to draw what I believe to be faulty conclusions; if you want an example, look no further than this column by Jerry Pournelle. (NB: I don't want to single Jerry out for specific opprobium, and I think it's only fair to note that what he's really talking about is the DMCA. However, I think this article typifies the received wisdom among many writers on the subject of ebooks, piracy, and DRM, which is why I dragged it in here.)
It's the received, prevalent wisdom — and it's a load of rubbish.
First of all, if overlooks the point that publishers don't manufacture ebook readers; the consumer electronics industry does. And the consumer electronics industry will not cut off its own nose to spite its face by producing an ebook reader for $20, if it can produce one with extra bells and whistles that sells for $350. We've had the tech for a $20 (or $50, anyway) ebook reader for a decade; it would resemble a grey-scale palm pilot, albeit without even the PDA functionality. But the parts are dirt cheap these days! If a manufacturer thought they could sell the beast, they'd be churning them out by the bucketload — and it's perfectly possible to read ebooks on a 160x160 green screen. I used to do it all the time in the mid to late 1990s. The reason nobody makes such a beast is because it's simply not profitable to do so. Explaining why this is so ought to lead into a long essay on the cost structure of consumer electronics, but basically, unless the Chinese government decides to subsidize its indigenous manufacturers in order to deliberately destroy the western publishing industry, it ain't gonna happen.
Secondly, and more devastatingly for the sky-is-falling promoters of the "pirate ebooks will doom the publishing industry" theory, until ebook readers cost no more than a hardback, 90% of readers will ignore them. And that's regular readers, not the folks who own four books (and one of them is a Bible). Expecting people to cough up $200 for a reader so that they can then pay $25 for new novels to read on it — as opposed to buying the novels for $25 (less discount) in hardcover and having the cultural artefact — is, well, it's just bogus.
We might see such a device (at $200) take off in the book club market. Imagine you join the e-book club. Your first sign-up gets you an ebook reader loaded with five titles for $20. Then you have to buy a book a month for the next year before you can leave, and you're paying $20 a pop. After a year you've got 17 novels and an ebook reader, and you're out $240 for a $200 reader. Most abook-clubbable people will stay in (they're set up for the club and they've already got a small bookshelf on their reader) and over the next year the club can make the profits to pay for that first year's loss-leader.
But 80% of readers don't do book clubs. I've seen my book club sales, and they're piss-poor (except in France, which is different).
Basically, the universal ebook reader is a non-starter — at least for this generation — for the same reason that it's near-as-dammit impossible to sell hardcover midlist novels for more than US $24; consumers don't like being milked.
Now, having demolished the myth of the $5 ebook reader being just around the corner, the second problem the publishing industry has with ebooks is their misapprehension of exactly what the "pirate" ebook field is costing them. Some otherwise fairly intelligent folks in the SFWAs anti-piracy committee think they're potentially costing up to 30% of their revenue stream. I'd like to call bullshit on that.
There's a figure I've heard quoted (unfortunately I don't know the source so I can't cite you chapter and verse on it) to the effect that the typical dead-tree book has, over its life cycle, an average of four readers. Moreover, sell-through in paper is around 50-60%; that is, for every book sold to a customer, 0.8 to 1.0 other books end up being returned or pulped. So the real figure is more like ten readers per book actually printed by the publisher.
Think about that. Today, publishers try like crazy to tie ebooks to a single reader via DRM, in their misplaced zeal to reduce profit leakage; but for the economic hit from piracy to equal the economic hit from libraries and second-hand bookstores and friends lending friends books, the unlicensed distribution channels would have to be shifting nine ebooks for every one that is sold commercially.
And you know what? I don't think most of the ebook sharing subculture is even about reading the books in the first place — it's about collecting, and participating in a gift sub-culture where your kudos is governed by how much stuff you can give away. Yes, this probably sounds alien to a lot of you. All I can say is, you haven't spent enough time monitoring alt.binaries.e-books.flood and the other pirate ebook distribution channels. There are folks there who, of a weekend, post more books than I could read in a lifetimes. Random, eclectic, nonsensical collections of books, some of which are hopelessly corrupted and most of which are poorly proof-read. These folks are not reading what they put out. They're not putting it out with helping other people read the stuff as a primary goal, either. There's another dynamic at work, and no scheme to stop or reduce ebook piracy stands a chance of working until we understand why it's happening.
Interestingly, Baen's webscription titles are under-represented on the ebook warez newsgroups. I don't think this is an accident. Books that come up most often are either scanned and OCRd paper copies, or cracks of DRM-locked ebooks. If you look at the posters' activities in terms of proving status within a gift economy this makes sense; OCRing a book or cracking DRM takes time and effort, and is a demonstration of putting effort into something — it's a high value activity. Whereas posting something you grabbed off Baen's library of for-free books, or paid $5 for is just stupid — it's like turning up to a a wine and cheese evening your friends are running on a "bring a bottle" basis with a bottle of Buckfast or Mad Dog 20/20. It's cheesy, tasteless, and looks cheap, and that's how the ebook pirate elite will view you.
So, it's time for me to advance some tentative conclusions about why the commercial ebook market is broken:
Which leads to the next question:what is to be done?
(To be continued, when I get around to it ...)


text:
In what is sure to be a key part of Scott Walker's defense, in a recently discovered December 6 WLUK-TV interview, Walker said with voice-cracking that his former Deputy Chief of Staff did no illegal campaign work for his campaign, but for "for somebody else," while working in his Milwaukee County Executive's Office.
Earlier this year, Walker had maintained that Rindfleisch "did everything we asked her to do" in relation to her official responsibilities.
Later, Walker slightly shrugs and puts his hands up when asked "how could you not know what people below you were doing?"


text:
As you may recall, my writing partner and I are using the online script writing collaboration tool "Zhura.com". We usually use Final Draft, but wanted something that was web based, would allow us both remote access to the script, and preferably simultaneous access for true collaboration.
We looked at a number of options, including ScriptBuddy, CELTX and others. We arrived at Zhura because, at least at the time, it was the only one entirely web-based and offering true simultaneous logon and editing. Zhura offers a free and a paid version (comparison here), and we opted for the free version. Not because we're cheap, but because we thought it did everything we needed it to.
Since then, it's proven to be useful but terribly buggy.
Early on, I had ongoing problems with the system throwing in strange spaces, line returns, and so on. It was pretty consistent, and being an old Information Architect and Web App Usability whore, I did a careful QA on the glitches, took copious notes, and shared them with Zhura. They kindly got back to me, we swapped a few emails, and ultimately, I was told that I shouldn't use Internet Explorer… that Zhura was optimized for Firefox. (Now, the site says Zhura works with Firefox, Google Chrome, IE and maybe one other…)
Okay, I like Firefox fine. So I dedicated myself to it, and continued on with Zhura.
There is no "import" feature to bring a doc in from another application, but in edit mode, I am able to paste in new content from other sources with a simple "paste" button. So we started by copying our outline from Word, and pasting it into the Zhura editor. It didn't stop us, it didn't give a warning, and there is nowhere on the site that says we shouldn't do it. So we did.
Over time, we began getting some troubling glitches…
- Everything would suddenly be italicized, randomly, while in mid-edit.
- Everything would suddenly be formatted as an ACT, randomly, while in mid-edit.
- Zhura includes an option to highlight the recent edits, color-coded by authorship. But when I clicked that button, our script would revert to its original version — just the outline — all our weeks of changes gone. Leaving the page and coming back would correct this, but it was very troubling.
- And we would occassionally, randomly, find large paragraphs of strange code suddenly appearing at strange places in our script. We could delete them, but they'd reappear at will.
We were concerned that we could never be sure if we were looking at our most recent version. We began to wonder if we should stick with the tool.
So I sent another set of notes to Zhura. They did respond, nicely and promptly, as they always do.
Again, it was my fault.
This time, for pasting from a WORD doc. I was told that as a paid "PRO" member, I could upload files from other apps. But to copy/paste from a WORD doc would create issues as I was experiencing.
Now, there is no place on the site that I can find that tells me this is an issue. The tool offers a "paste" option. It offers no warning. I looked at the "help" files (which are colorful and graphical, but not terribly helpful), I looked in the "discussion forum" (which is largely novices asking other novices "how do I format dialogue"), and could find nothing about what I could paste and what I could not.
I did find the "Free vs. Pro" comparison table. This chart indicates that the Pro version will allow me to "Import and Export Rich-Text, Word, WordPerfect, and OpenOffice". The expanded explanation states:
If you have a script in Rich-Text (.rtf), a document written in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), or a screenplay in OpenOffice (.odt), as a PRO member, you can import them directly into the Zhura editor. You also have the option to export your Zhura scripts to any of these formats.
But remember, I don't want to "import" a file. "Importing" a file is a very different action than is "pasting" content. All indications are that I should be able to copy and paste my doc, because I am given a "paste" button in the tool, and am not told that this is a restricted activity. My assumption, and I think a reasonable one, is that the tool will default to a "plain text paste" function, stripping any formatting.
Clearly I was wrong.
Other ongoing issues that I'm keeping an eye on:
- Page count is random. The page count shown in "edit" mode doesn't quite match that in "view" mode, and neither quite matches what I get if I export to a PDF.
- It makes a new historical version of the script every time it saves. And it auto saves about if you stop typing for more than about 30 seconds. So right now, my script (on which I've worked for about two weeks) has 1,425 historical versions on file. Seriously? I don't even want to look at any of them. Not a bug, not a glitch. Just seems like a terrible waste of space to me.
- Sometimes an element will appear properly formatted in "edit" or "view", but won't be so after export to PDF. (e.g. – an "action" sequence looks right, but simply doesn't show up in the PDF. Going back into "edit", I discover that it's actually tagged as a "character" — even though it appears left justified and otherwise formatted as "action". For some reason, this confusion of the system results in the passage simply not exporting to the PDF at all.)
- Strange extra "spaces" at the end of a sentence, after the period (I can't put my cursor immediately after the period). Backspacing to remove the space also removes the period… meaning the period and the space are treated as one character. Big issue? Probably not, but troubling, as it indicates another weird bug that may or may not impact the integrity of my script file.
- And there are other random little hiccups.
- And some, none or all of these may or may not also be the result of my pasting in text from a WORD doc.
But all is not lost. Zhura has proven to be a convenient tool for us, and I suspect will continue to be refined and revised. But the easy, short term fix for in-built systemic restrictions is to communicate them clearly for users. Zhura really needs a more thorough and explicit set of FAQ's and HELP files. It's not acceptable for users to struggle with apparent bugs and submit help tickets, only to be told that they're using the system incorrectly, when there is no clear help (contextual or otherwise) to offer actionable direction.
I like you a lot, Zhura. But I don't love you yet.
But opinions vary, as seen here on WriteForgeAhead… "Working With Zhura" – parts ONE and TWO.


text: Luc, that's not quite how I meant it! I believe the cluster market is becoming more mature and, increasingly, "standardized" commercial cluster oriented software is becoming available, including the "one or two specific pieces of software" you mention yourself. Another question to be asked in this context is: what's the growth rate for cluster specific software. Paul Luc Vereecken wrote: > At 04:00 AM 6/26/02 -0400, Paul Schenker wrote: > >The genius concept of the Beowulf Cluster currently implies standard > hardware - therefore it makes sense only to > >count the Beowulf Cluster software for now. > > As in: "You can't build a Beowulf without official Beowulf Cluster > Software" ? I think there are a lot of clusters around that don't have > prepackaged cluster software on them, especially the smaller ones. Don't > forget that many clusters are build to help the calculations with just one > or two specific pieces of software, and one might prefer to avoid the > additional effort of learning new cluster software just to install 8 > identical computers once and run the software on it. > > Luc > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


text:
NHL's West is best again in Stanley Cup finals
The West is best in the NHL — again.
The Los Angeles Kings beat the New York Rangers 3-2 in double overtime Friday night in Game 5, giving the Western Conference a third straight NHL champion, fourth in five years and sixth in nine years.
In the regular season, the Eastern Conference has also been consistently overmatched.
The West won 246 games and lost 202 against the East during the regular season — winning more intraconference matchups for the eighth straight season — to increase its advantage to 1,064 wins to 914 losses since the 2005-06 season, according to data from STATS provided to The Associated Press.
When the league emerged from a lockout in 2006, a salary cap was put in place to level the field, yet it's actually been tilting West.
Los Angeles and Chicago, which have faced off in the last two conference finals, have combined to win four of the last five Cups.
"Both of those teams have built programs with a lot of depth after being terrible for a long time," Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said in a phone interview. "They made good picks and made the right moves."
The Kings were bad enough to have the No. 2 overall pick in 2008 and they took full advantage, selecting defenseman Drew Doughty, who has developed into a star.
They also made the most of another first-round pick almost a decade ago, drafting center Anze Kopitar, who has become perhaps the league's best player that doesn't get a lot of publicity.
Likewise, the Blackhawks have built their team around high draft picks, taking forward Patrick Kane No. 1 overall in 2007, one year after selecting Jonathan Toews third overall.
The Kings and Blackhawks will likely be the teams to beat next year, too.
"The West has more dominant teams, led by LA and Chicago, and I think it should stay that way in the future," said Anson Carter, a former NHL player and current NBCSN analyst. "I don't see much of a fallout, but I think this kind of thing just goes in cycles."
The East did have a third straight champion when Carolina won the first Stanley Cup in the salary cap era in 2006 and it hoisted the coveted hardware five years in a row from 1991 to 1995.
The San Jose Sharks and St. Louis Blues also racked up enough points in the regular season to finish behind only one team in the East, the Boston Bruins, who won it all in 2011.
"When a team wins a championship, you try to do what you can to beat those teams and I think in recent years that started with Boston," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "The common denominator is having strength up the middle with an elite defenseman, centerman and goaltender."
The Kings certainly were tough to beat up the middle with Jonathan Quick in net, Doughty on the blue line and Kopitar in the middle up front.
New York, though, did match up well in those pivotal spots with goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, defenseman Ryan McDonagh and center Derek Stepan.
The Rangers pushed Los Angeles to a combined three overtime periods in the first two games before losing and had a 32-15 shots advantage when they lost Game 3.
New York avoided a sweep, winning 2-1 on Wednesday night to shift the series back to Los Angeles.
"It's not like we've been outplayed," Lundqvist said. "That hasn't been the case. They've been good, but I think we've been playing pretty good as well. It comes down to a couple plays here and there. That's been the difference in these games."


text:
If you've only ever enjoyed the sweet, juicy flesh of ripe papaya, you might not be familiar with the fruit in its unripened staged. Green papaya flesh has a foamy texture and a mild, almost tasteless flavor. But if you massage shredded green papaya with salt and sugar, a preparation you might also use for daikon or carrots, the papaya flesh becomes sweet and crispy, with a mild, cucumber-like flavor.
Green papaya, which can also be pickled or added to soups, is commonly used for salads in Vietnam and Thailand. Dressed in fish sauce, lime, and chilies, the shreds of papaya are sweet and refreshing. The salad can be as simple or complex as you choose—for a vegetarian salad, stick with other vegetables that also benefit from being dressed in lime and fish sauce, such as carrots, daikon, and cucumbers. Parboiled shrimp and squid are fine additions. Another Vietnamese favorite uses shreds of Asian beef jerky, which softens as it soaks up some of the lime and chili dressing.
The bright, pure flavors of the salad make it a refreshing starter to your meal. Though cilantro and Thai basil are common herbs to pair with the salad, try using any leafy herb growing in your garden.


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I've been moved, Chipmunks. Moved to go where this blog has never gone before.
Into the depths of my big, beautiful brain.
Who have we to thank? Well, we could call her Siri, but I prefer Annie Leibovitz, because my new phone takes such beautiful pictures. That, ultimately, is why I got her.
Come, let us look at all of the profound musings A-Leib has inspired since coming into my life last Friday…
If cars ran on hay, and horses ran on gas, I'd be okay with us running out of gas.
Is there anything hot glue, a ball of twine, and an intense desire to mask inner turmoil with superficial beauty can't do?
Sometimes, as the sun goes down, I wonder why all them "Twilight" haters hate. The protagonist is the epitome of quiet, selfless inner strength. She's also a pretty good cook.
Man's best friend can help us cherish simplicity: fresh air, open fields and sunny skies. And all the deer poop you can eat.
When one looks for signs to lead them down the right path, one often finds pebbles in one's shoe.
I believe inner peace can be found in the most unexpected places. Like someone else's backyard. …Or jail.
Happy Thursday! What's been on your dead sexy mind lately?
P.S. – In case you were wondering, they've put in new trailheads on our street, and the trails lead to some pretty spectacular views. Yeah, man! This is Jersey!


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As you know by now, this blog stands firmly in support of Evil Richt. Whether jumping off bridges to pick up chicks, fighting Al Qaeda, chewing Penn Wagers a new a-hole, or celebrating in your end zone and laughing about it, Evil Richt rolls hard.
So I'm pleased to see Evil Richt in a grumpy mood post practice yesterday complaining about the effort and generally in a foul mood.
"It was half-hearted at best. It was almost like they were looking around and waiting for me to cancel practice. If not for the four-hour rule, I would have started the whole thing over."Normal Richt does the recruiting and schmoozing. Great. Love it. But letting Evil Richt out of his cage a bit more will win us a national title. Other headlines from yesterday:
- -- 11,000 tickets pre-sold for G-Day. 40k possible - AJC
-- King gets a boost - ABH
-- Better Bean - Macon Tel
-- Context for Richt's 62% completion mandate for Stafford - GTP
-- Moreno ready for Action - Chattanooga Free Press
-- Baseball: Dawgs clobber Clemson - DawgSports
PS --> Check out the new poll on the right. What are your thoughts?


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ROSWITHA will be playing a highly anticipated show, celebrating her DVD release at The Blue Note in New York City. The show will be showcasing selections from her album DESTINY and featuring special surprise guests, her musical friends and collaborators on the NYC music scene.
21+ / $10 in Advance / $15 at Door. Tickets are available via The Blue Note website, here.
ROSWITHA is an Austrian-born and raised American violinist, singer-songwriter and producer. Her latest release, DESTINY, has been critically acclaimed and has garnered comparisons to the likes of Sia, Sade, Amy Winehouse, Adele, Björk, Florence and the Machine, Les Nubians, Stevie Nicks among others. DESTINY has been listed in several Grammy categories for nomination consideration in 2013.
Roswitha mixes gorgeous violin playing alongside her sultry vocals. With an infectious blend of jazz, classical, R&B, hip hop, rock and pop, Roswitha creates music that appeals to the masses, which transcends to the stage flawlessly.
Roswitha has had an esteemed career as "Queen Rose." She was featured on MTV's Unplugged with Trey Songz, and as a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, she performed with the likes of John Legend, Santana, Gloria Estefan and Patti LaBelle. Under the name "Rose Bartu," she built a highly respected jazz profile and issued the delightfully exotic Cherchez la Verité, a silky jazz album with violin, sensual vocals, and limber Afro Cuban grooves. Roswitha has lead her own bands, performing at celebrated venues like The Blue Note, Knitting Factory and touring Europe. She has notched over 50 production, arrangement, composition, and performance credits on over 19 released albums, videos and film soundtracks.


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Researchers in England have developed a battery powered textile yarn that can be used to illuminate the clothes of joggers, cyclists, or outdoor workers for protection. This electroluminescent yarn, or "EL yarn," is technically a multi-layer electroluminescent film composite material made from yarn and dipped in a special light-emitting ink on the inside, with a insulated covering and a second layer of yarn on the outside. When electricity runs through the yarn and ink, an electric field is created that illuminates any point where the outer and inner layers of yarn touch. Naturally, this would have a myriad of non-practical uses, not the least of which would be drawing more attention to the breasts of female club-goers. [TG Daily]
The Boogeyman's Sophie Thatcher Reveals What Draws Her to Dark Characters | io9 Interview


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Interesting tidbit (and relevant for internal audit) from an article in the latest Economist on how taking time to make decisions results in getting the ethics right:
Slowing down makes us more ethical. When confronted with a clear choice between right and wrong, people are five times more likely to do the right thing if they have time to think about it than if they are forced to make a snap decision. Organizations with a "fast pulse†(such as banks) are more likely to suffer from ethical problems than those that move more slowly… The authors suggest that companies should make greater use of "cooling-off periods†or introduce several levels of approval for important decisions.
Several levels of approval for important decisions sounds like a fantastic idea to me. What I find is that too many decisions are made or approvals given orally in meetings, with scant evidence to support their existence later, in case of an audit. Surely introducing more rigor around this aspect of approvals would further improve ethical behaviour!
Delay even works in fields where time might seem to be of the essence. Doctors and pilots can profit from following a checklist, even when doing things they have done many times before. A list slows them down and makes them more methodical, as Atul Gawande describes in "The Checklist Manifestoâ€.
Now you're beginning to see why this article prompted me to write a blog post for the first time in umpteen weeks! Not just levels of approval, but checklists too? Be still my beating heart!
Auditors have been employing checklists to improve quality for eons. It's great to see articles like this extolling their virtues to all people and for all tasks.


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- Inside Athletics
- Tickets
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Feb. 3, 2007) - The ETSU women's basketball team lost back-to-back road conference games for the first time this season as Lipscomb surprised the Lady Bucs, 57-52, inside Allen Arena Saturday evening. The loss drops the Lady Bucs to 12-9, 8-3 in the A-Sun, while the Lady Bisons improve to 7-14, 5-6 A-Sun.
The double threat of Penny Jones and Catie Woods combined for 44 of Lipscomb's 57 points as they both set career highs with 22-point efforts apiece. Brooke Wilhoit (Sevierville) and Michele DeVault (Columbus, Ohio) each scored a team-high 11 points for ETSU. It marked the first time in the young series the Lady Bucs lost to the Lady Bisons (3-1 all-time).
After controlling the lead for most of the second half, the Lady Bucs lost their momentum and could never regain the lead as the Lady Bisons hit two free throws at the 3:06 mark, giving the home team their first lead since 3:45 remaining in the first half. With ETSU leading, 47-42, at the 7:47 mark, Lipscomb's defense stepped up and the Lady Bucs offense fell apart as they did not make a field goal for seven minutes and forty-three seconds, giving the home team the opportunity to pull off the upset. Jones was automatic down the stretch for Lipscomb as she scored 10 of the final 12 points for Lipscomb, and hit eight of her 10 free throws in the final three minutes and six seconds. The center finished a perfect 10-of-10 from the charity stripe. The Lady Bucs had one final chance as they were trailing by two, 52-50, but DeVault missed an open three from the corner with twenty-nine seconds left, and Kelly Turman's (Atlanta) jumper could not find the basket, finally leading to a Lipscomb rebound and two more free throws to ice the game.
The Lady Bucs shot below 30 percent (26.2 percent) from the field for the first time since Nov. 24, 2006 when they finished 28.8 percent against Georgetown, while Lipscomb ended 19-of-52 (36.5 percent) for the contest. Despite the loss, the Lady Bucs shot a season-high 92.9 percent (13-14) from the free throw line, making up for their lost efforts a few nights ago against Belmont when they shot 50 percent. Both teams combined to finish 27-for-31 from the charity stripe.
In the first half, both teams got off to rough starts as they combined for only 11 points and 14 turnovers with a little over eight minutes gone by. Lipscomb was the first team to finally find some rhythm as they went on an 8-2 run, and took a 13-8 lead with 9:38 on the clock. Wilhoit caught fire as she connected on consecutive threes for the Lady Bucs, cutting the Lipscomb lead to one, 15-14. On the next possession, the Lady Bisons extended their lead to four, 18-14, when Dana Carrigan provided a three-point play. Both teams would trade buckets for the next minute and a half, but ETSU would eventually tie the game at 20, when Jenny Norman (Peachtree City, Ga.) drained a jumper with 5:08 left in the half. Lipscomb would answer right back with a quick 5-0 run, but the Lady Bucs finally turned things up on defense, holding the Lady Bisons scoreless for the final 4:01, and took a 29-25 lead into the locker room.
Norman led the Lady Bucs with eight first half points, while Catie Woods put in 11 for Lipscomb. ETSU turned things around from the free throw line as they hit all eight attempts, compared to going 4-of-12 in the first half against Belmont on Thursday night. Neither team shot the ball well in the first half as the Lady Bucs finished 30 percent (9-30) from the field, compared to 35.7 percent (10-28) from Lipscomb.
After a three-game road swing, the Lady Bucs return home to Memorial Center as they play host to Gardner-Webb on Thursday evening. Tip is set for 7 p.m.


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Today's News: Our Take - Arrested Development Creator on New Episodes, Surprises: "We Want to Reward the Fans"
"People are kind of used to getting what they want now," Arrested Development star Portia De Rossi said Wednesday at the Television Critics Association winter previews.
That statement couldn't be more true for the loyal following the Emmy-winning cult comedy has amassed. After seven years off the air and many rumors about the show's return (first via Showtime or another network, and later, by way of a movie), Arrested Development will return on Internet streaming service Netflix with 14 new episodes this May.
"It didn't seem as impossible to me until we got into it and then I realized how impossible it was," creator and showrunner Mitch Hurwitz told reporters. "I think I just kind of always held out hope that this would work out. It was a naïve hope."
Winter TV Preview: Must-see new shows
A naïve hope that become a reality last November when Netflix announced it had resurrected the series. But after so many years spent trying to resurrect the show, did Hurwitz feel the pressure to live up to that hype? "I could vomit right at this moment. ... So yes," Hurwitz joked. "It's great fortune to have something to live up to, but as creative people, I think we all have to do put that aside ... and have as joyous an experience as we can."
Hurwitz said one of the biggest pressures he faced was not pleasing the fans, but making sure they were surprised about what was coming up for the characters. From this came the show's strict policy against spoilers, as well as the idea of doing new episodes altogether. "We want to reward the fans for sticking with us," Hurwitz said. "There was so much talk about the movie and we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if we still did the movie and then did something the fans didn't see coming?'"
Netflix revives Arrested Development
When the series returns, every episode - each roughly under a half-hour - will focus on a different character from the Bluth family. For example, one episode may focus on Gob (Will Arnett) and then the next could focus on his mother Lucille (Jessica Walter). Episodes will feature appearances from the other characters and multiple episodes may take place over the same period of time, with each showing the narrative from the perspectives of different characters. "We're telling a complicated story that jumps around in time and has all these intersections," Hurwitz said. "Everybody sort of intermingles through each individual person's episodes," star Jason Bateman added. "There's plenty of the regular cast that filters through there."
Another big change is that all the new episodes will premiere on Netflix on the same day, which means fans will be able to completely control what order in which they watch the episodes and how quickly they consume them. "There is an order that we have put together to create the maximum number of surprises," Hurwitz said. "All of this conspired to make this one giant, one 700-minute Arrested Development."
The new format may be easier to consume for so many fans who fell in love with the show after its cancellation by "binge-watching" it on DVD box sets or on streaming sites like Netflix. "[Mitch's] writing is so pleasantly dense," Bateman said. "I just don't think it's necessarily conducive to something that has commercials in it or distractions of X, Y or Z."
The Bluths are backs! See new photos from Arrested Development
And the Arrested Development team is just getting started. Hurwitz and the cast were quick to dispel a rumor that the episodes were being made in place of an Arrested Development movie. "This is just the first act of what we hope to continue and complete with a movie," Bateman said. "These are episodes that set that up."
"And eventually a theme park, right," Arnett joked.
It has yet to be seen which companies will finance the movie and/or distribute it, but the cast is, again, holding out hope. "Maybe the movie will end up [on Netflix] too. Who knows," Bateman said. "If there is a movie, I know Mitch has great ideas for it." However, he also assured fans that the episodes will be a "satisfying conclusion" to the series if the movie doesn't happen.
Either way, the cast is simply happy to be back together. "It's different than the original Arrested Development, and beyond anything I could have hoped," Walter said.
The new episodes of Arrested Development premiere this May on Netflix. Are you excited? Would you see an Arrested Development movie?
View original Arrested Development Creator on New Episodes, Surprises: "We Want to Reward the Fans" at TVGuide.com
Related Articles on TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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Story highlights
An Australian company says it can manufacture a horseshoe made of titanium
Weighing less than traditional aluminum horseshoes, horses can potentially run faster
Advances in 3-D scanning helped to deliver the final product, the firm says
A set of four shoes costs about $560 and one version was made in purple
They are being billed as the Jimmy Choos of horseshoes but it's more than just the design that will appeal to jockeys and trainers.
Australian company CSIRO Titanium Technologies claims to have built a lighter horseshoe by using titanium rather than the traditional cast aluminum.
It says the shoe can be up to 100 grams lighter, which could mean that horses run faster in races.
Now, 100 grams might not sound like much but as Clive Woodward – given a knighthood after coaching England to glory at the 2003 rugby world cup – says, such small margins can make the biggest of difference.
Read: 'Ultimate race horse' up for sale
And whereas a pair of shoes made by Jimmy Choo can fetch more than $3,200, a set of four titanium horseshoes costs a mere $560.
"We are aiming to build confidence with the horse and the racing team," John Barnes, a titanium expert with CSIRO Titanium Technologies, told CNN in an email. "We still believe we can take more weight out."
In producing the titanium model, scientists scanned a horse's hooves using a hand-held device before formulating the design with software, CSIRO said in a news release with a headline referring to the famous Malaysian-born designer.
"Four of the customized kicks were printed within only a few hours!" according to CSIRO.
"It was a team decision when we were trying get people to understand the potential of additive manufacturing and how you don't have to be an expert designer," said Barnes.
"Advances in 3-D scanning provide an easy, affordable way to get a customized object and still have ultimate design flexibility.
"There are so many ways we can use 3-D titanium printing."
Read: The horse that upstaged Kylie
Richard Perham, a senior jockey coach at the British Racing School in Newmarket, England, said the new technology has potential.
"My job as a jockey coach is to get the riders to understand more about making finer points count," Perham, a flat jockey for 16 years prior to retiring, told CNN. "So if you add all those little points up and all those little 100 grams up, then I think there would be an advantage.
"Every bit helps."


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Are you interested in…
- Saving money on your taxes this year?
- Making a plan to save money on next year's taxes, too?
Julian Block is a nationally recognized attorney who has been singled out as: a "leading tax professional" (New York Times); "an accomplished writer on taxes" (Wall Street Journal); and "an authority on tax planning" (Financial Planning Magazine). He is frequently quoted by such publications as Money, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
His many books have been praised as: "one of the best personal-finance books" (Money); "one of the best tax books, an excellent source of information" (New York Times); and "a triumph of simplicity that tackles the complex world of taxes and communicates to readers in clear, everyday language" (National Association of Enrolled Agents). He often contributes to such magazines as AARP, Consumer Reports, Money, Playboy, Reader's Digest, and Vogue.
In addition to writing and practicing law in Larchmont, N.Y., he conducts continuing education programs for tax professionals and is a frequent guest on television and radio shows. Bryant Gumbel complimented him as "a frequent guest, whose insights are always great fare and with a talent for simplifying the complications of tax work." He holds a master of laws degree in taxation from New York University Graduate Law School, and is a member of the New York Financial Writers Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Formerly, Block was with the IRS as a special agent (criminal investigator) and as an attorney. He has taught tax planning at such schools as Adelphi University and New York University, and was the tax expert for Prodigy, the on-line service.
Julian Block is available for private consultations on tax planning.


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VANDALISM? CORRUPTION? HAVE NO WHERE ELSE TO TURN? NO STORY TOO BIG OR SMALL THE OSN WILL INVESTIGATE! Please email news tips to firstname.lastname@example.com
By Hilde Kate Lysiak
A Selinsgrove woman was allegedly raped and strangled in her Market Street apartment by a man she had just met, according to police.
The victim was taken to Evangelical Hospital on March 25th after claiming that Charles Ernest Moxley "forcibly had sex with her without her permission," according to the criminal complaint. The victim was also choked, according to police.
The victim claims that she went to sleep feeling safe because she believed her roommate was awake.
"Victim H stated on Saturday morning at approx 0300 hours is when the unwanted sex occurred at (OSN is withholding the address). Victim H stated that this was the first time meeting Moxley. Victim H stated she thought she was safe because her roommate was home but then the roommate fell asleep and that is when Moxley forced him in her," read the criminal complaint.
The victim's roommate backed up her claim in a written statement, according to police.
"I was in my computer room and the victim came to me and informed me that Charles Moxley forced himself on her earlier that morning. Where I suggested that he should leave. Then Charles Moxley came to speak with me where he admitted "he did force himself on her because of impulse where I stated to him that not how he treats a woman. He kept on stating yes he did do it again because his parents didn't raise him like that!! From there he went to bed and I did not hear him the rest of the night," read the statement.
In a series of text messages, Moxley allegedly claimed that he "wasn't thinking at the time," according to police.
The alleged text messages between Moxley and the victim are below:
Victim H: You do not respect me when I say no sex I meant it and it feels like rape honestly.
Victim H: I'm not going through this I'm sorry.
Moxley: Well that wasn't my intention but whatever you wanna do but we have to leave here at 9 and I'll drive down there and that's why you say stop but I'm sorry I was just trying to make a moment I'm nothing but a fuck up to the world.
Moxley: IDC anymore that no one wants me I just wanna go home in the morning
Victim H: Please just answer my question.
Victim H: Then I'll go.
Moxley: What question babe
Victim H: I know but why did you force me why didn't you stop when I said so
Moxley: I did answer I said IDK I wasn't thinking at the time
Victim H: Even when I yelled at you and tried to stop and said no?
Moxley: I know but let's drop it I feel bad and I don't wanna have problems like that again I wanna just do everything you want like be calm and
Moxley: If you are gonna start drama I don't want to hear it babe.
Victim H: I need to get this off my chest please answer me when I said no I did not want to have sex from the first time we chatted you forced me too!! I said no and I said stop but you held me down…I'm just trying to get you to admit what you did wrong then I'm done.
Victim H: I need to know what was going through your head because I'm trying to work things out on my head.
Moxley: No your trying to get me in trouble and admit to sumthing I didn't do I'm not dumb you prolly have the cops there and what not.
Moxley is charged with Rape by Force, Aggravated Assault, and Strangulation.
It isn't the first time Moxley has been suspected of criminal actions. In 2010 he was arrested after allegedly touching a 13-year-old girl "inappropriately." The OSN is trying to figure out what happened to those charges.
The preliminary hearing will be 5/22 at 10:45 am.
You rock, Hilde!
The gal who had the date, I want to know… are you on a online dating website? Are there pictures of you where booze is served, and pictures of you drinking? Your pics, are you making duck face expressions? A man you barely knew was invited into YOUR apartment. Do you realize how very dangerous this is? You are not going to find prince charming in a garbage dump. Your parents dropped the ball- as they raised you to make bad choices. Get right with Christ and find a church. When you put yourself in the worldly heathen sceen- you do not meet princes.
I'm sorry, I fail to see how this is HER fault. No means no, period. What kind of idiot writes a comment like this? Shame on you for victim blaming.
That's a very harsh thing to say to someone you barely know. You're telling her to find Christ. Do you think Jesus Christ would approve of you judging someone like that? That's for Jesus to do, not you. Regardless if she barely knew him or not , she should NOT have to worry about being raped. What do you have to say for those individuals that DO get raped and have known their attacker for a while? No one should EVER have to go through this or worry about this.
The other thing is now this poor girl is damaged goods. She has no chance at a husband and family. This is not fair to her. When a man marries, he wants a woman that is pure. Even tho she is a nice gal- she now has no chance that a god fearing man will ask her dad for his daughters hand in marriage. I weap for our young people.
Pingback: Grove Alleged Rape Hearing Delayed | Orange Street News
First off, I would like to enlighten everyone who has made a comment on this article, disrespectful or not. Not a single one of you know this female nor this male. I personally know the man being accused of this crime and he has done NOTHING wrong. Those posted "text messages" are pulled from their ENTIRE conversation. The text messages shown do not flow in the original messages. In this particular instance the messages on this article were about something completely different then what's been posted. From other sources, this women shows signs and traits of a mentally ill patient. I hope when all is said and done she be sent to jail for false accusations. The male refused to be in a relationship with her when they met. He was hesitant to even meet her but he went anyways. AFTER their weekend was up, SHE TOOK HIM HOME-to Virginia and went inside and spoke with his parents. She wanted something more, he didn't-she called the cops because she was upset and thought she could get away with something. Not ONCE during their intercourse did she say no. Now before any of you have anything negative to say on this comment just understand not one of you know him. Don't run your mouth with comments when you don't know the facts. That's a bad character trait. Now, start rolling out your negative comments and for those who can't mind their own business, I hope to see you on their trial day since you have SO much to say.
He did nothing wrong! He did. I was there and he admitted what he had done. He has been a predator for a while. Don't believe me? Here is another one of your boy's dealings http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/sex-crimes/police-ashburn-man-touched-gir.html This dude
You say he did nothing wrong , YET he admitted to it. Riddle me that Batman?! I have met him. He dated my friend and did her dirty. Lied about getting tested for STDS and then ended up giving her one. When she confronted him, he denied. Then admitted to never getting tested and then finally blocked her.
Amen this makes no sense. If she barely knew him, why drive 2 hours to pick him up? If he allegedly raped you, why would you agree to take him home? If she had called the cops immediately after the sexual contact occurred, I'd believe her. As "He's Innocent" said her allegation makes no sense. Why would you agree to take someone back home if they allegedly raped you? Even then, she could have told his parents or driven to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and told them. I hope he's acquitted or gets the case dismissed with prejudice and then expunged from his record.
What was the final disposition of this case?
He did a week in jail
Well y'all I don't know but I met him online seemed pretty cool guy really sweet made me lough and talked for about 2-3 weeks he was gonna come see me and meet up but out of the blue decides to block me from talking to him that same day I looked up his name and find this its scary I didn't read much in to it in till know!!!
Well y'all I don't know but I met him online seemed pretty cool guy really sweet made me lough and talked for about 2-3 weeks he was gonna come see me and meet up but out of the blue decides to block me from talking to him that same day I looked up his name and find this its scary I didn't read much in to it in till know!!!


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It's that time of the year again ….
Festivities and celebrations!!
Diwali – the festival of lights – The season for family, food, sharing and gifting.
I personally love the fact that more gifting means more shopping!! My absolute favorite way to pass my time. 😊
So amidst all the sweets and snacks, meals & drinks, one has to take out time to shop for the numerous gifts for all your loved ones. But more often than not, there comes a point where you are at a loss in deciding what to gift. Everyone wants to be innovative yet practical!
So, who doesn't like to pamper themselves… we all need some TLC and gifting your loved ones something to help them with that is always a winning option. So here are some of my suggestions which are well suited for everyone in the family…
This is my favorite option as it works for men & women, young & old. A perfect, simple gift that no one can get enough of. With a large number of variants available, you can always personalize your gift with the right fragrance. So whether it is a nice musky fragrance you prefer or floral undertones there are always options. My favorite is the Body Shop White Musk Gift Pack which looks so classy and comes along with a matching body lotion so the fragrance lingers on the whole day. For a more feminine touch opt for the White Musk L'Eau EDT Gift set with beautiful floral undertones.
Hand Creams
This is one gift I personally love receiving. As a working woman, after the housework and time spent in the office I rarely get time to pamper myself. Having a hand cream around is always something I appreciate as that few seconds one takes to moisturize your busy hands, really makes a difference. A few minutes to lather on some moisturizing hand cream, which also has a therapeutic effect with a lovely fragrance, is just the little boost in the day to keep me going.
Body Care Gift Packs
Another something, which is so practical, everyone has to appreciate it. With the personalized touch of your recipient's favorite fragrance whether it's the delicate Fuji Green Tea or the vibrant Satsuma, there is an option available for everyone. The perfect loofah, bodywash, soap & body butter or lotion kit, everything one needs for ultimate body care. Kids absolutely love the Strawberry variant in my opinion and for the more elegant elderly women British Rose is always a winner!!
Shaving Kits
For those special men in your life, whether a partner, dad or brother, this is an ideal gift. To be pampered, whilst grooming is what every man craves, and the right shaving accessories do just that. Try the Maca Root Shave Away Kit and you are sure to score brownie points with the men in your life 😊
Lip Butter Kit
For the teen girls, this is a sure winner. With a range of options available, which are good for your skin, Lip Butters make for the ideal gift little girls love to flaunt. My daughter loves her lip butters and never leaves home without it.
There are of course loads more options available, but these are some suggestions for all the different family members. So what are you waiting for, save your time and place your orders online right now by clicking here.
Gotta get back to my Diwali prep, so here is wishing you and your family a very
Don't forget to follow my blog for many more such posts, and check out my other social media, links too. Bye till next time! 😊


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Shareware is a form of distributing software that grew in popularity in the mid-nineties. Shareware comes in a variety of forms, ranging from:
- 30 day/startup trail and then that's it, so pay me if want to use it more, ya cheap git
- This is the free, crippled version, so pay me if you want the full version, ya cheap git
- It's free, but please give me some scraps if you decide you like the software, ya cheap git
One can simply download the shareware package of choice from the author's website, install it, then and run it. After trying and enjoying the software, one may then simply purchase the full version of the software (either online or by mail order) and continue using it.
What an ideal way of trying, using and paying for software!
So ideal, in fact, that many average schmucks who only think they can program have attempted to make a quick buck out of it.
That's the tragedy. Most shareware just do not hold up to any ideal or consumer friendly paradigm, and it's been like this since the its inception. The vast majority of shareware is badly written, shabby, buggy, ugly, bloated, dysfunctional, shallow, misguided, and are basically pieces of godshyte with frustrating, idiotic restrictions and insane pricing schemes.
It gets even worse taking into accou....CheekyWiki Edit is SHAREWARE, Limited to 20 lines of wiki. Please buy CheekyWiki edit 5.2.23 for 30$ US. Pirating software is stealing.
Functionality[edit | edit source]
So, where does this horrid shareware find its _UNREGISTERED_ niche? In the simple operations of course. Most people already have 90% of the functionality they need from their computers with the sets of _UNREGISTERED_ applications they own, like graphic designers have photoshop, and musicians have basic _UNREGISTERED_ sequencer packages. But the last 10% of functionality, the 10% where speed and user-friendliness is the most desired feature, is when _UNREGISTERED_ the shareware world makes its move.
Examples[edit | edit source]
The graphics designer who owns _UNREGISTERED_ photoshop would like to do <typical time consuming operation> (lets say, a special blur) on a large number of images. Scripting or by hand is not an option, so low and behold, the Internet seems to have the answer. A quick search trough Google turns up a myriad of websites with long _UNREGISTERED_ lists of _UNREGISTERED_ software that you can download... wow! And it's try before you buy shareware! So the graphic artist, under a lot of time constraint, rejoices and clicks the first hit.
It seems too good to be true, as all of these packages do precisely what he needs. The first _UNREGISTERED_ application has a whopping 5 star review index and therefore he figures this must be the very best one.
BlurMeister PRO 2.45b License type : SHAREWARE (TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!) Price : $24.99
"Well", he figures, "I do this type of work a lot . The price isn't bad, and if this does what I need it to do, I'll buy it!"
He continues reading towards the features...
Features : 542 Preset Blurs Batch blur Blurs 'r' us import filter 15 pictures of the author Large Eula Pong game easter egg Hoolahoop tutorial embossed in splash-screen 35 second startup delay (60 in the trial version) Random skins on the interface OS : Windows XP SP1 Dependencies : Dot net framework, OpenGL, DirectX, EMACS, VB6, Photoshop CS3 extended with plug-in pack
"It's a bleeding _UNREGISTERED_ miracle," he thinks, "I have all these specs! I use an SP1 box and by chance just installed all those other packages over the weekend because I was bored. Gosh, for a package that only needs to blur stuff it sure does do an awful lot of unrelated useless stuff that nobody else needs but what the hell."
The graphic artist with the deadline clicks install and after a reboot or 2 he gets the_UNREGISTERED_ software up and running.
After spending two hours learning to navigate the totally useless interface, he finally finds the _UNREGISTERED_ blur option.
Although it does not work as great as advertised, it DOES work. All of the images are now being automatically processed absurdly slowly by the _UNREGISTERED_ shareware tool, if only because the _UNREGISTERED_ algorithm of the tool seems to be a poorly optimized performance hog and thus renders his quad-core 64-bit 8-Gigabyte graphic monster workstation incapable of doing anything else other than the blur operation.
So after spending two additional hours waiting and generally doing nothing else, the _UNREGISTERED_ application is finally finished.
Feeling a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from beating the deadline, he pops out his checkbook to purchase the program. This little _UNREGISTERED_ tool, although clearly designed by an infant with no feeling for interface layout and lacking any decent programming skill whatsoever, just saved his skin, and that clearly is worth 25 bucks.
But lets see the results first. Eagerly he clicks the resulting image files only to find out that:
- 1. The _UNREGISTERED_ application has overwritten the originals (no biggie, the work is done right?)
- 2. All the images have loads of big diagonal_UNREGISTERED_ text splashed across them. WHAT THE FUCK??
Yes, all of the pictures that took 2 hours of intense, wasteful processing have come out full of overly intrusive watermarks.
Aw, poop! Making these types of terrible programs should be a crime. All of his images were contaminated by _UNREGISTERED_ _UNREGISTERED_ _UNREGISTERED_"UNREGISTERED" watermarks, and the original images are gone. The douchebag who created this _UNREGISTERED_ crappy piece of shareware should be _UNREGISTERED_ hung.
To add insult to injury, the Eula that you accepted also includes a legal get-out clause for the author that states that he is not at all responsible for the damage to your data, hardware and/or person. The author, to make matters worse, also insists that the overwriting of the_UNREGISTERED_ source files is a "special feature" that keeps the hard-drive clean and therefore gives him a _UNREGISTERED_ pathetic excuse for this bad programming. All of this for $24,99.
All the artist wants now _UNREGISTERED_ is a response from the guy, so he e-mails the author, who replies that he wrote that old piece of blurring code back in 1998, and that he written it as a simple DOS tool in about 3 hours. The last 7 years he spent on it was for adding the menu's easter eggs, presets, skins and some other random _UNREGISTERED_ junk nobody cares about. Apparently, despite not even finishing the coding, he decided to make a quick buck by releasing it to the internet, _UNREGISTERED_ so the shareware text remains even in the paid version.
"Boy," the poor artist/shareware victim _UNREGISTERED_ reckons, "This guy is an economic genius. I mean, I buy Photoshop for $600 with about 500 special features. Combined with the basic functionality of the package, that should work out to be less than a single dollar per feature. But this guy sells one lousy feature for $25, and the five-star reviews mean that people like it, so he must be filthy rich."
Yeah, not quite. He's not really filthy rich. _UNREGISTERED_ The reason will be given later.
Pissed, but calmed, the artist decides to try some other packages on the site, but this time, he does read the limitations in order to avoid a repetition of the previous debacle. These are some of the _UNREGISTERED_ things he found on the site.
- BlurIT DeLuxe 3.02 - Shareware ($66.99) Crashed on start up.
- ÜberBlurrer II - Try Before
you bleedbuy ($129.99) Crashed on save file.
- BlurringWorks Second Edition - Shareware ($50) Trial version cannot SAVE.
- MegaUltraHellaBlur XP - Shareware ($2.50) Turned out to be a virus.
Should you now peer through the window of the house of this graphic designer, odds would be very much in favor of you not only seeing the atrium and stairway, but also the gently swinging legs of a person about 6 feet above the _UNREGISTERED_ floor.
Yes, the evils of malicious shareware drove this poor man to _UNREGISTERED_ suicide. And for what? Did the author get paid? Of course not, nobody buys such tripe.
[edit | edit source]
The example above is not the only evil of shareware. If for example the person in the story of the graphic artist would have scrolled through the 66 hit pages of blurring software, he would have found this entry somewhere near the end:
Blur.exe 0.99 This tools blurs a bunch of programs with a special user-defined blur setting. It only blurs and does nothing else. But it blurs very very very fast. It writes the output to another location. and it's FREE under the BDS licence.
Would this tool have been used, it would have converted the work within mere seconds, and probably with better quality at that.
As you can see, this is the real evil of _UNREGISTERED_shareware. For every small trivial feat that for some reason remains absent from mainstream software that is surely worth its price, there are a myriad of _UNREGISTERED_ amateur programmers that have the delusion that their Visual Basic skills produce useful software that people would actually pay for, and so the Internet is filled with piles and heaps of that worthless crappy, buggy slime-soft complete with absurd prices and useless extra features, and it's all of this dead weight on the net that obfuscates the useful stuff out there.
The truth is that for every truly free and decent _UNREGISTERED_ program, there is a multitude of mediocre shareware programs that cover its existence.
[edit | edit source]
- Identify a trivial _UNREGISTERED_problem
- Write a simple solution that just works
- Do not share it
- Rewrite the solution using some crappy framework like .Net
- Add menus
- Add more settings and options
- Make the application skinnable
- Create 10 MB worth of crappy recolored skins
- Add bells
- Don't forget about adding _UNREGISTERED_whistles
- Insult the user with "The user(${UserName}) of this software is so poor that he does not have money to buy a shareware that only cost $999. Please kill him. His IP address is ${IPAddress}" or something like that
- Cripple the basic functionality in a trial version
- Build a website for it that looks like a software company's website
- Charge a ludicrous _UNREGISTERED_ amount of cash for it
- ???
- Profit.
But since nobody has thought "???" through, nobody profits.
[edit | edit source]
"Imagine a novel _UNREGISTERED_concept. A great idea in the mind of a person capable of translating this into a useful and meaningful paradigm that can be transformed into a usable quality software product. This individual has the wit and the means to gather the proper resources and assemble it, thus reaching his goal and achieving successful commercial enterprise."
That is Adobe, not a shareware programmer.
The shareware coder is a _UNREGISTERED_Visual Basic coding, mothers basement dwelling, lazy, uneducated, mostly unemployed, _UNREGISTERED_,gamer type of person in their 20's to 40's that has the illusion that they understand Computer science. These amateurs produce trivialities on a massive scale and truly believe that each of these space wasting piles of digital excrement are worth real world currency. The illusion that it is ethically sound to charge any amount money for their braindead creations so that they can make some extra money next to their Walmart paycheck is a sickness of the mind.
The very thought by any of those hobbyist basic scripters that this line of work could actually make a stable livelihood is borderline psychotic. (_ AND UNREGISTERED_)
It seemingly fails to dawn on those third class script kiddies that there is no such thing as a sustainable market for second rate coders. One by one the shareware concocter's fail to see that if they had any skill at all, they would be working for Adobe, Apple or maybe even Microsoft. Unfortunately, most of these useless interface junkies still maintain that they actually contribute in a positive manner to the digital world.
Better or more honest alternatives[edit | edit source]
Shareware sucks, it's clear. But the lie around this whole try before you buy scam is just plain wrong. Here is what can we come up with or offer instead of this retarded management slogan.
- Sniff before you decide it stinks software
- Touch before you get ripped off software
- Queer-ware
- Shareholders-ware
- 30 trial days WITHOUT FUCKING NAGGERS (What a novel idea!)
- Open Source, free as in speech software
- Open Source, free as in beer software (Who cares about politics?)
- Kill yourself you motherfucking b class coder software
- If you buy this and it does not work you may stone me to death software
- Simply does what it needs to software
- Glance at it at a remote distance before you opt for steering clear software
- I should be freaking paid for using this software
_UNREGISTERED_[edit | edit source]
CheekyWiki Edit is SHAREWARE, Limited to 20 lines of wiki. Please buy CheekyWiki edit 5.2.23 for 30$ US. Pirating software is stealing.


text:
55-year sentence in Fla. missing foster child case
MIAMI — A woman who once cared for missing foster child Rilya Wilson was sentenced Tuesday to 55 years in prison for kidnapping and child-abuse convictions, closing a case that spanned more than a decade and triggered changes in Florida's child-welfare system.
Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez imposed the sentence on Geralyn Graham, 67, who was convicted last month following an eight-week trial. With a lone holdout, jurors were unable to agree on her guilt or innocence on a first-degree murder charge, and prosecutors are unlikely to retry Graham on that count.
Tinkler Mendez said the evidence showed that 4-year-old Rilya was subjected to "senseless, cruel and inhumane acts" at the hands of Graham.
"One can only be inherently evil to inflict that type of pain and torment on an innocent child," the judge said.
Assistant State Attorney Sally Weintraub said Rilya went from an initial loving foster home to an "abyss" with Graham that kept the child in terror during the final months of her short life.
"We trust that with this sentencing there will be some measure of satisfaction to those people who loved Rilya and cared about her," Weintraub said.
The judge sentenced Graham to 30 years for kidnapping plus 25 years for aggravated child abuse. Two other abuse sentences — 25 years and five years, respectively — will be served concurrently for a total of 55 years behind bars. Prosecutors had sought the maximum of life plus 65 years.
Rilya vanished in December 2000 from the Miami-area home shared by Graham and her lover, Pamela Graham. Her disappearance wasn't noticed for 15 months, largely because a Department of Children and Families caseworker neglected to check on the girl in person as required.
The case led to the resignation of then-DCF director Kathleen Kearney and the passage of several reform laws, including a new missing-child-tracking system and the contracting out of foster child casework to private organizations. Lawmakers also made it illegal to falsify records of visits between caseworkers and foster children.
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Democrat who sponsored some of those reforms in the state Legislature, said Graham's sentence was just. She is not related to Rilya Wilson.
"She's not getting life, but she will be in prison for the rest of her life," Wilson said of Graham after the sentencing.
Rilya, whose name is an acronym for "remember I love you always," was the daughter of a crack-addicted woman. Rilya and two sisters were all put up for adoption, with the younger sibling also being cared for by the Grahams when Rilya disappeared.
By the time investigators got the case, any physical evidence that might have existed was long gone. Rilya's body has never been found, leading Graham's defense lawyers to suggest during the trial that the girl might have been sold and could still be alive. Prosecutors also had no eyewitnesses to any crime.
Graham insisted she was innocent and in brief remarks Tuesday she said eventually "the truth will come out."
"It hurt me to the depths of my soul for anyone to think I would do that to any child. I only tried to help her," Graham said. "I loved her too much to have ever done anything to her. Things have been greatly exaggerated."
Defense attorney Michael Matters said there will be appeals of the convictions and sentence. He praised the judge, nevertheless, for restraint in the sentence.
"My client was not convicted of murder, though the state would like the court to sentence my client and punish her as if she were," Matters said.
During the trial there was evidence of abuse, including a dog cage witnesses said Graham obtained to punish Rilya and testimony about the girl's lengthy confinement in a small laundry room. Pamela Graham testified that Geralyn Graham regularly tied Rilya to her bed using plastic restraints so she would not get up during the night.
The murder case hinged on testimony by three jailhouse snitches. The state's star witness, career criminal Robin Lunceford, said Graham told her behind bars that she smothered Rilya with a pillow and buried the body near water. Lunceford said Graham believed Rilya was evil and had to be put out of her misery.
A last straw was Rilya's insistence on wearing a Cleopatra mask instead of an angel costume for Halloween, according to Lunceford.
Graham consistently denied harming the girl, telling investigators and even national television shows that Rilya had been taken away by a DCF worker for mental tests and never returned. No evidence ever surfaced to back up that claim. Graham also told other stories to friends about Rilya's whereabouts, including purported trips to Disney World, New York and New Jersey.
Lunceford made a deal with prosecutors cutting her life sentence to 10 years in exchange for her testimony. She is currently scheduled for release in March 2014.
Pamela Graham was charged with child neglect but also will likely get no jail time in exchange for her testimony. Pamela Graham insisted she does not know what happened to Rilya, but she didn't admit to investigators until 2004 that there were numerous lies surrounding the girl's disappearance.


text: I have been up all night long and I would appreciate any help. I upgraded my suse 10.1 to 11 and then I ispconfig to version 2.2.25 Now pop and Imap is not working, and websites are not working. ISPconfig is working. Here are the error messages: I am guessing this may be due to the passwords getting corrupted. I noticed the website folders were set to root for user and group. I also had login problems and once I re-entered the password the logins worked. Also the main www folder is root for user and group. I don't know which users I need to change to make this work and I don't know what the permissions on the directories should be. Please help! Thanks, Gary


text:
Movie review: Denzel's the only one getting high in 'Flight'
If you possess even the slightest fear of flying, by all means avoid getting onboard "Flight." It will scare the bejesus out of you. Or at least it will during its nail-biting first half hour, as director Robert Zemeckis puts you through the ringer in staging an airliner crash that couldn't feel any more real if you were actually strapped into the plane. Then it all quickly falls apart, the movie, that is. The jet, amazingly, remains pretty much intact thanks to the supernatural skills of an inebriated pilot who finds the only-in-Hollywood wherewithal to bring all but six of his 101 passengers back to earth alive.
Yes, he's the anti-Sully Sullenberger, a hero with an insatiable hankering for hooch, hos and cocaine. Who better to portray this master of malfeasance than Denzel Washington in full "Training Day" mode? He plays the heck out of it, too. But unlike his alliterative character, veteran jet jockey Whip Whitacker, he can't keep "Flight" from nose-diving straight into the ground. Part of it is due to mechanical error on the part of a perfunctory script by John Gatins that comes frontloaded with that spectacular crash sequence, then spends the rest of the movie woefully trying to top it with an all-too-familiar depiction of an addict struggling to get straight.
The suspense, if there is any, lies is in whether or not Whip will find the courage to come clean with the NTSB and its lead investigator, played by fellow Oscar-winner Melissa Leo. But to get to that pivotal moment of truth, expect to spend more than an hour enduring repetitive scenes of Whip getting off and on the wagon, aided and inspired by a recovering drug addict, who, lucky for him, has emerged from her ordeal looking hot and heroin chic. This is what I like to call "The Days of Wine and Roses" portion of our show, as Washington and Jessica Chastain look-alike Kelly Reilly (Mrs. Watson in the "Sherlock Holmes" movies) slowly discover that love and alcohol don't mix. Making matters worse, Whip has daddy issues, one of many demons that arise while hiding out from the media hoards on his late pappy's spread in rural Georgia. Add to that the heat he's getting from the feds and the pilots union – both of whom are keenly aware that his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit at the time of the crash – it's little wonder he keeps returning to his 100-proof companion to escape
It's all glossily presented by Zemeckis, who takes a respite from his emulsion in motion-capture cartoons ("The Polar Express," "A Christmas Carol") to make his first live-action flick since "Cast Away" in 2000. But it too often lacks energy, or, worse, a reason to care. As good as Washington is in the role, Whip is rarely likable, and his dilemma extremely hard to empathize with. About all the film accomplishes is instilling a fear that the next time you fly, your pilot might be an irresponsible lush like Whip. The rest of it, except for that breathtaking crash sequence, provides scant payoff, unless you count the ridiculously implausible final "courtroom" scene that attempts to instantly rehabilitate a guy we've long determined to be a selfish jerk.
Sorry, not buying it. I was, however, sold on a trio of supporting roles, brought vividly to life by Don Cheadle as a cocky, union-appointed lawyer, John Goodman as a jovial drug dealer and Bruce Greenwood as a concerned union rep. They are the wind beneath "Flight's" wings. But as hard as they and Washington strain to generate thrust, they can't lift this air bust beyond cruising altitude.
FLIGHT (R for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity and an intense action sequence. Cast includes Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, Don Cheadle, John Goodman and Bruce Greenwood. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 2.5 stars out of 4.


text: Thank you for your enquiry. A member of our team will review your request and you will receive a personal response within 24 hours. At busy times this may vary, but we always aim to contact you by the next working day. Meanwhile if you need any more information, please contact us on the telephone number below. Kind regards MasterMover Ltd Tel: +44 (0)1335 30 10 30


text:
Sorry for the lateness! But I thought i would say some things …I haven't typed up stuff in along while but i also thought i would explain why my posts are once a week!….I do a lot irl due to taking care of my family and myself in general …so when i do have time i take the pictures for the post at the beginning of the week and by the time i get to sit and edit it its around thrusday-ish so i just wait til friday or Saturday to post it…That's pretty much it…I do want to try different things soon where im doing lil mini posts and so on but i will see when that can happen…all in all if it comes down to it by the end of this year i will officially deside on if i want to keep blogging or not any longer…so til then here's a post once again but this time on a Tuesday! and i will do one more friday(Or Saturday)! HUGSSSS
Top~.:villena:. – Halter Crop Top – Blush@Kustum9
Shorts~.:villena:. – Leather Shorts@Kustum9
Choker~Eclat – Ari Choker(gift)@@Kustum9
LegChain~Eclat – Princess Leg Chain@Uber
Liner~-Glam Affair- Couture Eyeliner no.01
NoseChain~.random.Matter. – Nodin Feather Chain@Chapter Four
Bangles~C h a r y . – Gaia Bangles (Gold)
Head~CATWA HEAD Nicki [Static Head]
Hair~little bones. True – The Blend@N21
LipThing~LUXE. Choi Lip Ring@N21
Cuff~Messy. Handcuff Anklets Gold
Shoes~REIGN.– LACED THIGH HIGH GLADIATORS(MAITREYA) BLACK #6
Eyes~{Dead Apples} Phantom Eyes – Raven
Skin~[theSkinnery] Trisha @Shiny Shabby
Tattoo~.Reckless. – IIIX@Shiny Shabby
Decor~ :HAIKEI – a vacant house gacha@@Kustum9


text:
This track has a very uplifting and powerful vibe. This piece will bring any corporate project, video, or presentation to life. This song incorporates piano, strings, bass guitar, and electronic drums.
Includes both High Quality Wave and Mp3 file's.
please check out my top selling tracksMotivational Corporate Rock: 2:47
Uplifting Corporate Anthem: 2:20
All The Good Times: 2:06


text:
The Top Three Myths About Anonymous
By now you've heard about how the shadowy collective Anonymous is launching cyberattacks—"Operation Payback"—against perceived enemies of Wikileaks, including PayPal, Amazon and MasterCard. But you've probably heard wrong. Let us debunk three commonly-held myths about Anonymous.
1) Anonymous is a powerful hacking organization
This random 22-year-old British kid named Chris "Coldblood" Wood has been making the media rounds throughout Operation Payback, portraying himself as a "spokesman" for Anonymous on British and Canadian television. This has been met with howls from many Anonymous partisans. There is no Anonymous spokesman because Anonymous is highly decentralized and ephemeral; any leadership is informal, and coordination is on-the-fly. Anonymous is not, as USA Today calls it , "an organization working with Operation Payback." Think of Anonymous more as a subversive brand than an established crime syndicate.
Some take the Anonymous brand more seriously than others—Anonymous' years-long war on Scientology is waged by hardcore volunteers, for example—but anyone can act in the name of Anonymous, from a kid hacking into Sarah Palin's email account, to a bunch of 4chan users taking down the blogging platform Tumblr or sending Justin Bieber to North Korea. All you need to do is come up with a cool name for your campaign, Photoshop a flier, slap on Anonymous' creepy headless suit logo and start doing something disruptive. Anonymous is a mob, not The Mob.
2) Anonymous is made up of highly-skilled hackers
So far, Operation Payback has caused a stir, but the amount of real damage Anonymous' attacks have done to their targets is tiny. While skilled hackers do sometimes participate in Anonymous actions (
like the aforementioned Sarah Palin Hacker*) the vast majority are only a little more computer-savvy than the average heavy Internet user. A skilled hacker would abhor all the noise Anonymous has been making during Operation: Payback—the point of most hacking is to do your damage and get out as quietly as possible.
There's a reason the favorite tool of Anonymous is the server-overloading software Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), which has been used in this recent spate of attacks to crash MasterCard, Visa and Paypal's websites. Its simple push-button interface can be operated by anyone who watches a brief YouTube tutorial. Even so, Anonymous chat rooms and message boards routinely fill up with questions from people who have no idea how to operate LOIC.
3) Anonymous is Anonymous
Anonymous is often used to illustrate the perils and promise of complete Internet anonymity. Given Anonymous' name this is understandable, but a mistake nonetheless! Anonymous is far less anonymous than they'd like to believe. LOIC is easy to track, and already a 16-year-old has been arrested in connection with the attack on MasterCard. Sarah Palin's hacker was tracked down and sent to prison, and in 2008 an 18-year-old kid was arrested for attacking Scientology websites in the name of Anonymous. Nobody's really anonymous on the Internet anymore—not even Anonymous.
* Correction: All the Sarah Palin hacker did was guess Sarah Palin's password. Our bad.