This is probably old news to most of you, but I found it hilarious:

A deadly virtual plague has broken out in the online game World of Warcraft. Although limited to only a few of the game’s servers the numbers of characters that have fallen victim is thought to be in the thousands. … In the last week, [Blizzard] added the Zul’Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar - the god of Blood. In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a “corrupted blood” infection that can instantly kill weaker characters. The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar’s corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it. This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player. Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as “carriers” and infected player-controlled characters they encountered. The first server, or “realm” as Blizzard calls them, affected by the plague was Archimonde; but it is known to have spread to at least two others. … Many online discussion sites were buzzing with reports from the disaster zones with some describing seeing “hundreds” of bodies lying in the virtual streets of the online towns and cities.

BBC

Just came from KMFDM again, and I guess my first post here.

This year was just as great if not better than last year, though I didn’t make a fool of myself this time. Whoever never saw it this year missed one heck of a concert. Most of the songs were from Hau Ruck (all except the last two on the CD), the best KMFDM album in a very long time. They actually sung not so popular songs like Inane and Terror, which was a blast of fresh air. They also played the classics Waste, A Drug Against War, Attak/Reload, WWIII, Son of a Gun, Megalomaniac and Last Things. No Godlike this time, which sucks.

Delg and I actually stuck around after the concert to meet the band. They were awesome, and quite down to earth. On a side note, some newlyweds were toasted to on stage by the band at the beginning of the encore. Now I have something to aspire to do whenever I get married someday.

Hope you people down east get to see them this year. Hopefully there will be more KMFDM next year. Also, for those who loved Lucia’s solo CD “From the Land of Volcanos” she’s having another one come out next fall. Very cool.

And the best part of the concert, NO DJ ACUCRACK! That made it better than last year for sure.

Iraqi version

On Monday, two persons were approached for suspicious activity. They fired at police, killing one and wounding another. They attempted to flee in a car, after which they were apprehended and photographed. It was discovered that though the two were in civilian clothes, they were in fact British soldiers. Explosives were found in their car, and it is believed that they were in the process of planting explosives for the purpose of inciting violence. It is for this reason they are believed to have fled from the Iraqi authorities.

These events set off other violence, including the bombing of British tanks, and clashing with Iraq Basra police. UK demands for the release of their soldiers led to fighting between UK and Iraq Basra police. The UK mounted an armed raid, consisting of twelve tanks, and brutally overtook the police station, allowing hundreds to escape and extracting their soldiers. The UK and US is currently in the process of damage control, claiming that the operation was a “rescue” and further attempting to eliminate any other evidence or opposition.

UK official version

Iraqi police had arrested two off-duty British soldiers, and after some negotiations, they were released into British custody.

DarthSilly on Kuro5hin

However as the first comment on the post mentions, it is usually a good idea to get the full story. To quote the poster:

The official British Govt version is that the soldiers were arrested after a firefight with Iraqi police. Rather than handing them over to coalition forces, as the Iraqi police are required to do by Iraqi law, they instead handed them over to a group of Shiite militia, who, in addition to having no legal standing, are less than friendly towards the british. The soldiers were then rescued from a private residence, rather than the jail.

ChrisCc on Kuro5hin

The Learning curve is apparently longer then i thought… Now if I was a man infamous for having my genitals severed by my wife, would I learn enough not to abuse my next wife? I like to think yes, but Mr. John Bobbit is apparently dumber then me… cause he’s been at it again…

Too bad this one can’t use a knife…

In response to Bush’s push to have Intelligent Design taught in schools in the US, a man by the name of Bobby Henderson enlightened the world about the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. Important topics are covered in this religion such as

… Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters [being] a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 1800s …

See the shocking graphical results showing the inverse correlation between the pirates and global temperatures here.

I’m not sure I am buying it, but Nintendo is releasing a new generation of controllers that will be “revolutionizing” the way gaming is done. Check out the link here.

In Roman mythology Ceres was an earth goddess and patron of agriculture, especially fruit and grain. It is perhaps ironic that Ceres may contain more fresh water than the Earth. Ceres was the largest “minor body” discovered until 2003 UB313 was discovered two years ago. Ceres is still the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, roughly the size of Texas in diameter, and it was mistaken for a planet by Giuseppe Piazzi, the Italian astronomer who found it in 1801. In his defence, it is round … In any case, Ceres is very lacking in density. It has long been assumed that this was because it was a loose collection of rocks, held together by gravity. Now they believe it is because the mantle is 25% water, meaning it could contain upwards of 400 million cubic kilometers of water compared to Earth’s 41 million cubic kilometers of fresh water (1.4 billion cubic kilometers water total). If this is true, it could mean that humanity could acquire water from elsewhere in the solar system to support offworld colonies … like on Mars.

Not that you really need it, Plurk…

The Guardian has an interesting article on why so much bad science ends up in the media. It presents the hypothesis that “in their choice of stories, and the way they cover them, the media create a parody of science, for their own means. They then attack this parody as if they were critiquing science.”

Has anyone heard the promo dialogue for SpikeTV’s Stargate commercial (The 1994 Movie)? It airs tonight at 8PM/10:30PM (EST?). Anyway, the dialogue is this:

Every hero needs a mission.
Every geek needs a puzzle.
And every ancient alien needs to be bitch slapped.