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Comment Re:GO UNIONS! (Score 4, Informative) 674

It's much more than just "a cut"

The contract Hostess wants to impose on BCTGM workers includes:

        -- An immediate 8 percent wage cut.

        -- Shifting 20 percent more of health care costs onto the workers (for some workers, this would mean an increased cost of $240 a month for medical insurance).

        -- Eliminating retiree Medigap insurance, which covers gaps in Medicare.

        -- Eliminating Pension Supplement to pay health and funeral costs.

        -- Closing an undisclosed 10 to 12 plants.

        -- Eliminating the eight-hour day, which would mean no time-and-a-half pay after eight hours per day.

In addition, the company illegally froze pension contributions mandated under the contract for all of 2012, in violation of federal law. This is still being contested before the National Labor Relations Board.

http://socialistworker.org/2012/11/15/hostess-workers-draw-a-line

Comment Kefir (Score 2) 183

All what's needed is the patient making their own, home-made goat kefir (if they're not terribly allergic to dairy -- although even dairy allergies are a para-symptom of wheat allergy in reality). Kefir's 43 different bacteria and yeasts can kill CDiff, and it's being shown to do so in research (Minnesota university professor/doctor tried it recently too). But the kefir must be home-made (bottled ones don't include the full spectrum of bacteria/yeasts because of bottling regulations regarding alcohol the yeasts create), it must be from goat, sheep or buffalo milk (for less casein irritation, as the A2 casein is more compatible with humans), and it must be fermented for 24 hours (to minimize the amount of lactose ingested). Two-three cups a day of kefir (with a few berries in it, maybe with some pine and walnut nuts, also maybe with some raw, unfiltered and local honey too), and CDiff should be back in check within 3-4 days. No need for antibiotics, for pill probiotics, or doctors for that matter.

Comment Re:Perhaps (Score 5, Informative) 446

That's your stupid fucking opinion, but here's the facts:

"The study by Stanford Law School and New York University's School of Law calls for a re-evaluation of the practice, saying the number of "high-level" targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- about 2%."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html

Comment It still has a long way ahead (Score 5, Informative) 126

As a filmmaker and a graphics artist these days, I like Blender and its idea behind it, I really do. This is a copy of what I wrote on my blog about all that: The CGI on this movie still looks like VFX animation and not realistic. It looks fake. Camera tracking is good, modelling seems ok, but lighting and animation aren’t. There are no shadows to talk about, everything it’s too HDR-ish. If that’s what Blender can do in 2012, then color me unimpressed. That’s no Hollywood-worthy CGI. And let’s not forget that this movie was produced by the Blender guys themselves, with hand-picked Blender artists.

Unfortunately, that quality is not even good enough for TV anymore. Sure, there have been worse VFX on TV than what Blender can do, for example the re-imagined version of “V”, but thing is, there have been better ones too. Back in 2010, Stargate:Universe had some amazing VFX in some episodes, more realistic than anything I’ve seen on TV, before or after. An even more important point for TV is the time it takes to do things with the app (since their deadlines are extremely strict). Blender is not that easy to use, Maya can do better, faster.

That doesn't mean that Blender is useless. It’s not. You can’t beat its price and features in the advertising sector (which doesn't require extreme realism, it mostly needs some animation tricks), schools (for obvious reasons), or as a hobbyist artist. Blender can also prove to be a life-saver for indie filmmakers who primarily have the time to deal with Blender (rather than the money to buy other packages). So if *I* was doing an indie short movie, I would use Blender, because it's good-enough for what I would need to do, and I have indefinite time on my hands. So it’s got its uses in the world. It’s just that I don’t see it being able to compete for Hollywood movies and serious TV shows.

Comment I'm fond of Jacobin's article on the topic (Score 5, Informative) 235

"Megaupload's Kim Dotcom, a willfully tacky fat guy with a baby face and a vanity license plate that says "guilty," has styled himself as a kind of comic villain, a composite of everything people love to hate. He effectively serves as empire's face of piracy: an overweight nouveau-riche wannabe hacker who finally gets his comeuppance through the macho justice of Uncle Sam. It's so easy to hate Kim Dotcom that you almost forget that the US convinced the New Zealand government to send in an assault brigade, bereft of a valid warrant but outfitted with automatic weapons and helicopters, to arrest a Finnish citizen at the demand of Hollywood studios. If Kim Dotcom didn't exist, the FBI, with the help of the MPAA, would have invented him."

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/gimme-the-loot/

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