The funny thing is ...

... I bet one would meet all sorts of interesting people kicking open random bathroom stalls.

More here.

How amusing indeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/10/27/how-amusing-barnes-noble-is-now-amazons-biggest-publishing-problem/

Indeed -

"B&N’s argument is that if they cannot sell the digital version of the book then they’ll not be willing to sell the paper one either. And Amazon really isn’t going to start offering B&N the opportunity to sell the digital versions.

The effect of this is larger than you might think. For Amazon had deliberately aimed at that general interest best seller market. But seeing that the books it has published haven’t gained traction it’s finding that authors and agents don’t particularly want to sign up with Amazon as the publisher"

Gee, as an author I wouldn't want anything to do with Amoron either.

Time to revolt - really? Now?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/29-4

Very nice, but frankly a part of me thinks the time to revolt has come and gone. Let's face it - our society's political systems have been so co-opted and corrupted by 500+ years of capitalism, corporations, and wealth and opulence all tied up with conservatism, religion and downright stupidity of the less-informed (willfully or otherwise) and downright idiocy of the cynical and tuned-out, to really think that human beings are truly going to come together as a species and really save the planet from irreversible destruction.

Simply put, not enough people really care enough to do something - that's the problem right there.

Yeah a public health care option would've been a very good first step.

Indeed, but it goes beyond that.

Right-wingers didn't object to it because they really thought it was bad.

Right-wingers objected to it because the public would accept it en masse, to the point where there'd be no choice but to move forward with a a nationalized single-payer health care plan that covers all.

I'll believe it was really Monstanto's bad week ...

... when the actions from Mexico, Hawaii hold true, and I-522 actually passes.

Still, this is a good sign.

It's because Diebold is a corporation - and not an individual sentient human being - that they can get away without being charged as a criminal.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10323

If they were an actual person, they'd be in jail. Instead, because they aren't, and because they have a shit-ton of money to spend (on such things as say, fines), there is no real accountability for their "worldwide pattern of criminal conduct".

I guess not everyone tests their software before it's rolled out to customers.

But hey, let's play the blame game when teams don't do proper performance testing under nominal, heavy, and peak volume loads (not to mention determining system stress capacity), nor do they conduct proper analysis and evaluation of changes in usage late in the testing cycle.

More here - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal-s-cgi-faces-scrutiny-over-troubled-obamacare-site-1.2187662

But at least the US Government is willing to admit just that ...

"With Republicans and Democrats launching attacks over the introduction of the insurance website, the Obama administration acknowledged Wednesday that the system didn't get enough testing, especially under high volume loads."