Required Viewing.

Priced Out Of Your Medication? Must Be All That 'Expensive' Big Pharma R&D

Everybody who thinks we do not need healthcare reforms should read this.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110626/17115214866/priced-out-your-medication-must-be-all-that-expensive-big-pharma-rd.shtml

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FarmTown users might want to take a look at this warning. Even if you are not a FarmTown user, you might want to take a look at this warning. Chasing and Removing computer viruses is not near as much fun as all that!

From Mashable: WARNING: Farm Town Serves Malware Ads to Facebook Users

Slashkey's response is wishy-washy: Either the ads deliver Malware or
they don't. If they do, they should not have gotten past the most
rudimentary of QA checks!

Divide and Conquer?

Everywhere I turn, there's somebody screaming at someone about their position on some topic or another.

In my head I've been putting a plan together for analyzing this, but the recurring theme is: "It's as if "They" are deliberately setting out to divide us."

Looking back in history "Divide and Conquer" is a very popular strategy. It has been used with commensurate success by ALL imperialist powers, most dictators and not a few corporate raiders.

Who "They" are is open to debate.

<insert your favorite conspiracy theory here/>

It bears noting that there are very few objective/neutral news sources left. And the ones on the extremes of the spectrums (spectra?) are getting more and more strident (and less and less credible, but that doesn't seem to stop people reading/hearing/viewing them apparently.)

Am I alone in thinking this way?

Thanks to @Beth Rich George for pointing me to Compassion Bloggers: They are on a trip to Kenya even as we speak.

MIT's Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters -- Engadget

Finally! Creative (hopefully peaceful) protest!

via news.yahoo.com

Hope adding creativity to the mix will get the world's attention!

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 released.

I've been using Thunderbird for a gazillion years now. Up to now it's been because I can't stand Outlook (or it's retarded younger sibling Outlook Express.)

I've put up with it's foibles and had a wish list of things it would do for me, but never got around to sending that wish list to the developers.

Apparently they got hold of the wish list anyway. (Spoooky!)

My favorite features:
1. Smart folders: I can view email coming into the 13 (good thing I'm not supersticious!) accounts I have to monitor from one smart folder while leaving the actual emails in their own physical folders.
2. Awesome Search capabilities! You really have to try it to believe it. It's a bit slow at first if you have thousands of emails (like I do!) on your hard drive. But after indexing it's pretty darn quick. The best part: You can actually act on the search results as a list! (Didn't use to have that.)

If you like open source and are looking for a more robust way of managing the flood of emails, this is it!

Cory Doctorow’s Makers serialized on Tor.com

via tor.com

Cory Doctorow is a phenomenal writer. He's ain't half bad at social commentary and forward thinking either.

Interesting points:
1. The world-view shift he's proposing in the novel is intriguing.
2. Interesting that serialization is coming back in vogue.
3. Aspiring writers could learn tons from Cory Doctorow, not just about the craft of writing, but about online presence and marketing!

For my Beer Drinking friends.

via i.imgur.com

I have to imagine whoever put this together did a LOT of research! Lucky person!!