News Stories

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"In a recent episode of his online talk show on the Nico Nico Douga video-streaming
service, Gainax co-founder and former president Toshio Okada (known in anime
circles as "Otaking") shared his thoughts on the topic of illegal copying. A user wrote
in to ask, "I am content with just downloading illegal copies of anime and games.
What do you think about this?""

See:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/inte...llegal-copying

I really like this guy... he seems to have a realistic pragmatic view and expectations.

Okada replied at length, starting by saying, "Honestly, if that's all it takes to make you happy, then that's fine," but encouraging fans to buy when they have the financial means to. He then moved to the case of individuals who claim they never plan to stop distributing illegally, saying that such a person is only interested in the personal, practical value something can bring to them, comparing this case to someone who claims he never wants to date a girl, but does want to grope women in the train as long as he is not caught.
Moving to the creator's point of view, Okada said that he believes that people who will pay money for a good product will always appear, and that creators would be best served by keep a realistic outlook on the market with this fact in mind, stating that it is better to keep people who can't afford to pay for products amused than to let them remain bored.
Admitting that he realizes that such an outlook "looks down upon" such individuals, he also suggested that paying fans consider themselves "a rank above" those who don't pay. Okada then advocated that rather than becoming upset at people who illegally copy, paying fans should feel sympathy and understanding towards them, and consider them "pets, not parasites," with each one of their purchases supporting the opinions of thousands.

The "patron" + "peanut gallery" in a nutshell, along with the raspberry for the asshat minority.

[ganbaru]

China military warns of confrontation over seas
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83K08D20120421

Analysis: Did U.S. fumble chance to peer inside China's secretive leadership?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83K04920120421

Wheels begin to turn in India's farm revolution
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83I02S20120419

[MrTerrorist]

Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb wakes from coma

Thank God he's alright.

[konart]

Explosions at a chemical plant in western Japan on Sunday killed one worker and injured 17, including nearby residents.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120422_09.html

[ganbaru]

Iran says is building copy of captured US drone
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-22-06-40-48
This isn't much of a surprise, the question is how close of the original the copies will be .

[Zakoo]

And so here are the results of the first round for those interested

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83I0EZ20120422

I will afk, go cry over Le pen score, oh those people. There's no hope left here.

[Dhomochevsky]

This is elimination though, right?
So unless Le Pen wins, it doesn't matter much (other than embarrassing the country).

To be fair, I don't understand the french voting system, with those rounds... but I'm glad when you are finally out of campaign modus. It got a bit annyoing in the end. :P

[sneaker]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

To be fair, I don't understand the french voting system, with those rounds... but I'm glad when you are finally out of campaign modus. It got a bit annyoing in the end. :P

Unless I'm mistaken, it's very simple:
The two candidates who get the most votes in the first round will compete in the second round, unless a candidate has more than 50% of the votes in the first round already.

This is necessary because there's only a single seat to fill, so if e.g. all left-wing votes are divided among several candidates but all right-wing voters choose a single candidate, the latter might win even if 80% of all voters were left-wing. In 2002 far-right-wing Le Pen only had like 3 percentage points less votes than the winner Chirac in the first round, but almost 65 percentage points less in the second round. So with only a single round he might have had a chance of winning.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Zakoo

I will afk, go cry over Le pen score, oh those people. There's no hope left here.

Frankly, as much as I support Sarkozy, he's alienated too much of his supporters to receive their votes in the first round.

Still, seems like there's hope for Sarkozy. Let the Right win!

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

This is elimination though, right?
So unless Le Pen wins, it doesn't matter much (other than embarrassing the country).

To be fair, I don't understand the french voting system, with those rounds... but I'm glad when you are finally out of campaign modus. It got a bit annyoing in the end. :P

Two more weeks, actually. We don't really get out of it till the end of the second round, when the president's decided.

(And even then, we've got the legislatives to look forward to in a few months...)

[ganbaru]

Human-made earthquakes reported in central U.S
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83G1FL20120417

[totoum]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

(And even then, we've got the legislatives to look forward to in a few months...)

There's a reason they call it the "third round"

Hollande is slightly ahead but the key is really the ( historically high amount of) Le Pen voters,Sarkozy's gonna need them to win.

It's kind of paradoxal but even if she isn't in the second round if there's a "winner" tonight it's her.

[Xellos-_^]

Yet fresh reports in recent weeks about the victims of repression in North Korea are a reminder of how ruthless the dictatorship still is. It insists that “political prisoner” is not in its vocabulary. Yet growing numbers flee persecution. According to David Hawk of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, some 23,000 recently escaped North Koreans now live in South Korea. They include hundreds of former political and other prisoners. They bring with them harrowing tales of the brutality they have suffered.
Their stories have enabled Mr Hawk to update “The Hidden Gulag”, which first shed light on the slave-labour conditions in North Korea in 2003. The new edition provides testimony starting in 1970 about different types of forced-labour camps: the kwan-li-so for political prisoners, from which there is usually no release; the kyo-hwa-so penitentiaries mostly for those serving out sentences as common criminals; and detention centres for those forcibly repatriated from China. All appear to involve mistreatment that frequently ends in death. In the detention centres near China, North Korean women suspected of being made pregnant by Han Chinese are subject to forced abortions, the report says. (The state preaches an extreme gospel of racial purity.)
http://www.economist.com/node/21553090

i don't think there will ever be a peaceful resolution to the NK mess. the NK Regime is in too deep, any lost of control would result in the NK's ver of the french revolution. The only NK elite who would survive are those who manage to get over to China.

[ganbaru]

BP sues Bridas on $7 billion South American deal collapse
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83M13I20120423

[Vexx]

Analysis piece in the journal Foreign Policy on the war on women --- in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it will probably make the author (an Egyptian journalist) a target...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...te_us?page=0,0

...
But let's put aside what the United States does or doesn't do to women. Name me an Arab country, and I'll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt -- including my mother and all but one of her six sisters -- have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating "virginity tests" merely for speaking out, it's no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband "with good intentions" no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are "good intentions"? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is "not severe" or "directed at the face." What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it's not better than you think. It's much, much worse. Even after these "revolutions," all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian's blessing -- or divorce either.
...

[ganbaru]

North Korea's nuclear test ready "soon"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83N07420120424

China firm boasts about missile-linked North Korea sale: envoys
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...83N05S20120424

Edit: Alberta ( Progressive) Conservatives defy polls, win another vote
http://ca.reuters.com/article/domest...83N04720120424
This one was a close call.

[AnimeFan188]

"Mexican migration into the United States has come to a standstill and may soon
reverse, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center. This marks a dramatic
change in the wave of Mexican migration that brought 12 million people to
America in four decades."

See:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...GVzdAM-;_ylv=3

[AnimeFan188]

"Russian scientists have released footage of what's believed to be the world's
only all-white adult male orca, which belongs to a small pod known to inhabit
waters off Russia's Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. The orca was
named "Iceberg" because of the way its towering white dorsal fin broke the
surface of the chilly waters east of the Kamchatka Peninsula."

See:

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/...an+scientists/

[Kokukirin]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"Mexican migration into the United States has come to a standstill and may soon
reverse, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center. This marks a dramatic
change in the wave of Mexican migration that brought 12 million people to
America in four decades."

See:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...GVzdAM-;_ylv=3

If I am reading it correctly, the standstill includes only legal migration. It says roughly the same number (~1.4mil) of people moved in either direction. But there are still 6.1mil illegal immigrants from Mexico in 2011. It is less than the 7mil illegal immigrants in 2007 so the trend is certainly downward. But there isn't a real standstill yet if you include the illegals.

[Ithekro]

I image we don't have very good records on how many illegals come into the country and how many leave the country (since some are basically migrant workers that go home when there isn't a picking season going on).