George A Romero's Dead trilogy - Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead - were low-budget, low-production value gore-fests dismissed by critics but loved by horror fans. Over the years they wormed their way into popular consciousness and have been re-evaluated, elevated from exploitation B-movies to savage satires on modern American society. With the recent release of sequel Land of the Dead, now is a good time to look back at Romero's films and their cultural impact.

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If you look at the Army Field Manual's section on interrogation techniques, you will find an enlightening little passage on the subject of "coercive" interrogation, which says in part:

The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

Yesterday evening, John McCain passed an amendment to the next military appropriations bill which if followed would end such practices by simply requiring the treatment of detainees to be held to the standards in the Army field manual. Bush claims he's going to veto it. This would mean the first, and so far only, veto of Bush's entire presidency would be performed in support of torture.

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I've got Good News and I've got Bad News.

Recently, the government of Florida managed to pull together to pass HB 0249, a law now commonly known as the "Stand Your Ground" law. This law provides for the following:

"A person, not engaged in an unlawful activity, who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so, to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself, herself, or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

So, finally, this Christmas, when we all leave our trailer parks and go to line up outside Walmart to score those cheap 40" TVs, and there is a riot when they finally open the doors, I can light you up like 2Pac when you get in my face.

Now, on to the bad news.

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When entering a Best Buy store, I'm now `greeted' by a guy in a blue shirt. (Lately they've been changing their shirt color to a Best-Buy yellow, but that doesn't matter.) In addition to loudly bellowing out "Hello!" he also mumbles "...howyoudoing?"

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Tattooed across his chest was the phrase, "My mean right hook." It was something he talked about all the time. One guy would say, "Says who?" Another would say, "Yeah? You and what army?" A third would say, "How you gonna pull that off?" The answer was always the same.

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This is a first-person account of how IBM was able to con my execs out of millions of dollars. Gullible management tries to swim with the shark and gets chewed to pieces. Witness the exec-level FUD sales techniques and the $325/hr subcontractor labor bait and switch.

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Many people from various Open Source communities wave their hands and shout "Switch to Linux, switch to Free software". But when Windows users invite Tux to their computers, they face various problems with installation and configuration. They look for help, but they can hear nothing but "RTFM" or "Google it". Let's think about us - experienced users and them - newbies. They need help and we know the answer. We try to teach them not to ask stupid questions. However, our answers are stupid as well. Where's the golden mean? Let's try to find it.

If you work at technical customer support, you are paid to be nice and being helpful is your duty. You have to solve typical problems many times a day and you can't point users to the manual. But let's assume that you're a computer geek - you know everything and you are eager to share your knowledge. However, when somebody asks you for the sixth time in a week how to turn on a mouse wheel in Linux you lose your temper and explode.

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Given we are now entering the autumn, it seems timely to present a brief guide to one of my favourite seasonal activities for the last 20 or so years; the exciting game of conkers.

Basic Gameplay
Conkers is a two player game in which each player is equipped with a conker (the fruit of the Common Horsechestnut tree, known to some as a "Buckeye") threaded onto a piece of string. The players take it in turn to take shots at their opponent's conker, until one player's conker is destroyed. Conkers is therefore a brutal game where no quarter is spared and the word mercy is unknown. Yet it is also a noble pursuit; when it is your opponent's turn to take a shot, you must let your conker hang at the end of its string at a height of your opponent's choosing. It must remain as dead still as your nerves will allow. Tempting though it might be to whip your pride and joy away before the moment of impact, it is well recognised that to do so would cast a dark stain on the perceived character of the cheat low enough to try it. It is perhaps no accident therefore that conkers is a sport that originated in the home of chivalry itself, England. That said, I have from time to time found the alleyways and playgrounds in which conkers is traditionally played surprisingly windy places at times.

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"It looked just like a scene from Apocalypse Now. The grass was dead, all the trees were down or dead. Everything was covered in mud. Cars were covered in mud, pushed everywhere, on the median, in the yards. Everything that wasn't covered in mud was covered in mold."

--My coworker E, describing his house, which sits about three blocks from where the 17th street canal levee broke in New Orleans

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With the apparent growth in popularity of poker I thought it might be useful to provide some instructions for a couple of simple shuffling flourishes to impress your friends and potential victims with. With enough practice you should be able to absentmindedly shuffle and cut a deck of cards with one hand while sorting your chips with the other. It's also a useful flourish for those interested in card tricks, and just generally for those interested in manual dexterity games.

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