Media Retractions - WTF?

So here I am sitting and watching old episodes of Media Watch, and there is a bit about how a news paper ran a retraction, on page 11, about a story they had run on the front fucking page the day before trashing someone.

So I'm thinking how the hell do they get away with that? If you trash someone and need to issue a retraction they should be forced to place it in the same location. Trash someone in the first 5mins of the 6 o'clock news, retraction in the same place, not after the weather when most people are switching to another show. Trash someone on the front page, front page retraction.

Bloody bullshit if you ask me.

Vatican popes slippers in mouth...

So the Vatican has opened it's big gaping maw yet again and done more to hurt Christian progress then any number of Muslim extremists... by commenting on a fucking movie.

The Vatican has described the science fiction film 'Avatar', which has taken $1 billion (£600m) at the box office, as bland, cliched and overly-sentimental.
Telegraph.co.uk

I mean seriously, I didn't really care for the plot that much, or the acting (by humans at least), but the effects were exceptional, and the 3D interesting if not a little annoying after a while (fucking 3d glasses suck)... but honestly, it's not like Dogma which everyone knew was going to hank them off majorly, as far I can remember it doesn't even reference human religions, just the one it made up, and damn near all Fantasy and Sci-Fi fiction (book, games, movies, etc) does that, so what the fuck are they doing?

It's either a ploy to get attention by bagging something "popular" (I'm at least happy it beat that Twilight shit into the ground money wise, if they want to beat up on a movie, try that dribble, unlike Avatar it at least has it coming) or they are honestly stupid enough to think people want them to do movie reviews rather then you know... doing shit that actually matters... sort of like the various governments around the world.

I'm not a huge fan of the catholic church, that's not for any faith based reasons, which I wont get into, but rather their lack of doing anything, they have massive amounts of money and real-estate, constantly open their traps, and totally fail to live up to Christ's legacy.

You know Christ the dude who went around not only preaching and saving souls, but doing a lot of practical earthly good at the same time.

So yea... they need to shut their pie holes and start acting like Christians... you know doing good works rather then sitting around in their palace drinking expensive wine and eating 5 star meals.

The Irony of The ABC

Last night as I was laying in bed about to drift off to sleep, a copy of a Honor Harrington book on my bedside table, I had just finished rereading one of the chapters on Haven and it's dictatorial rule, and state owned and controlled media when a thought occurred to me.

"State owned media is almost always portrayed as 'evil' yet I trust the ABC far more then any commercial media outlet"

It struck me so hard I laughed. The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) is state owned and regulated, but not directly controlled, with many many people in Australia choosing it over commercial outlets due to it's reputation as serious and honest. Sure the government make a big stink now and then about "bias", but I've seen conservatives and liberals both make the same claims over the years, and other news outlets just plain hate them, so I ignore it.

Isn't an irony that people have started to trust state owned media more then the so-called "free" press to deliver real unbiased news about real world issues? I don't trust Newscorp or any other local Australian media, and I definitely don't trust places like Fox or CNN with their blatant bias, one on either side of the political fence.

When did this happen? It should never of happened, but really it was bound to happen when the media companies got so big they started to be able to impact the news they were suppose to be reporting.

Then there is the issue of profit, the search for the almighty dollar, I'm far from a communist, but when you start putting profit as the main motivator of a news organisation it's naturally going to lead to pandering to your audience, and that's when you start being news and start being entertainment.

The ABC is tax-payer funded, it doesn't have to worry about making a profit or ratings or any of that other dribble, so it actually reports the news as it happens, rather then slapping their own opinions on it or slanting the story to appeal to their subscribers.

There is also the factor of the ABC does less "cute" and "cleb" stories then their commercial competitors. If I'm watching the news I want news, not a story about some cleb I don't care about screwing around, or some dog down a drain.

I realise this is starting to sound like a love letter to the ABC, and that wasn't my intent, as a media outlet it's far from perfect, but in today's world it's vitally important that we fight to keep it, otherwise all we'll be left with is people like NewsCorp, and noone (apart from Murdoc, who recently said he wants the ABC out of news because it's "unfair") wants that.

And don't get me started on NewsCorps opinion of Blogs, for a company that blantently rips them off all the time on their sites, without even fact checking the stories, calling Blogs plagiarism and theft to be the hight of bullshit.

Anyway I'm done for now, I still think it's funny that I've come to trust a state-owned media outlet far more then any other source.

Early Retirement

A Maryland woman lost her accounting job after a background check performed through the FBI’s criminal database indicated, erroneously, that she was unsuitable for the job, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Eschol Amelia “Amy” Studnitz had been working for Corporate Mailing Services since August 2008 as a senior accountant.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/ncic

Well congratulations Amy, looks like you've just won an early retirement, I'm betting you've got lawyers lined up around the block begging you to hire them and from what I'm reading you've got a rock solid case against the FBI and you're old employer.

Personally I wouldn't of sued myself if I'd of got my job back, but since they screwed you, SUE THEM TO HELL AND BACK!

I feel bad for her, really I do, but I also find it kind of funny really in a "hah some big company / government agency is going to get owned" kind of way, though given the way the legal system works she'll either have to take an out of court settlement or live hard for a year or two while it's worked out in the courts.

It's yet another example of why the legal system needs an overhaul, limits placed on the number of lawyers/assistants/etc each side can have, and limits on the time they can take. Cases should take weeks at most, not years.

WoW Player Threatens to Hijack Plane

The 18-year-old from Johnson County, Indiana, said that he "was going to board a plane at 7:30 to Chicago and that (he) was going to try and kill as many Americans as possible," ...... Predictably, Blizzard employees saw the announcements and notified the proper authorities. The teen quickly backpedaled, claiming that someone had hacked his account, but that didn't stop the FBI from seizing his computer to investigate the incident further.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93184-WoW-Player-Threatens-to-Hijack-Plane

Jesus Christ on a freaking pogo stick are some people just born without the brain power of a flea or what? I mean honestly what posseses someone to think saying crap like that is a good freaking idea even if the Post Bush USA?

"Games On Demand" for Xbox 360

Whitten announced "Games On Demand" for Xbox 360, a feature launching this August that will allow users to download full retail games to the console's hard drive. Whitten called the the feature a "natural progression" of Xbox Live's current offerings. The service will launch initially with 30 games, including titles such as Mass Effect, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Crackdown, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2. Prices will be in line with physical retail, and new games will be added regularly.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23865

Okay so impressive and cool and all, especially since a number of Australian ISPs offer free traffic to XBox live (go Westnet!), but what will happen when gamers who are fed up with gaming stores start downloading games rather then going out to buy them and drive the traffic up?

There are already full games on the xbox live system, not just arcade fun ones but 4/5gb monsters. "Classic" games from the first xbox, I've got a few like Max Payne and Halo 1, but I doubt they'd even come close to the amount of traffic a new game like Assassins Creed 2 would generate release day.

Will we see ISPs drop Xbox live traffic from the free list? I know if I had to download an 8gb game and effectively pay for it twice I'd think twice, that's the reason I bit the bullet and went into town to buy my copy of warhammer online (bad investment, I played for a month before uninstalling it) rather then just download it like I wanted to as I hate my local game store and only go there when forced, like in that case.

I doubt the ISPs will drop it, free content like the xbox live stuff actually costs them less then a lot of stuff we download as its mirrored locally, I wont get into the details as its a pain in the ass to explain and frankly I can't be bothered, but by steering users to free traffic ISPs save money.

The price of the downloads is another thing to consider, currently we Australian's are royally ass raped (I don't like to use that term, but it really applies here) by game prices, check out the difference of Fallout 3 in AU $109AUD and US $56.99US (roughly $70AUD) so we pay a whopping $40 more then people in the US, yes you could argue we are a smaller market and there are fright costs, but when you start talking about online content those arguments drop away very very quickly, so if we pay even the difference you're going to see a lot of very happy Australians.

Another issue I see with this is the insane prices of xbox hard drives, you can buy a 1TB drive for less then an official Microsoft 120gb drive, that's just pathetic, there is no difference at all between them, and games now days take up a lot of space, I've got an 80gb hard drive in mine and I've already burnt 50gb of that on installs and downloads without even trying, so unless they drop the prices to a reasonable level, they are going to have a hard time selling this in some markets.

Though personally if the game price drops I'll likely just delete games as I'm done with them and redownload them later, if the system is like the xbox live current system which remembers what you've paid for and lets you grab as many times as you want. After all my xbox downloads content off the Microsoft servers at my full 8mb connection and 10gb at that speed takes only a few hours.

That's not even taking into account the game stores reactions... but frankly I don't give a shit about them, smelly dicks conning people into buying shit they don't need.

All in all, interesting news but not enough details to really go into it.