Vesela Lecheva, Chairman of the State Agency for Youth and Sports, supported the bid of the Bulgarian Chess Federation to organize the semifinal match for the world championship title between Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky, Radio Gong reported. Having in mind the importance of the competition and its complex preparation, and in order to provide optimal conditions for the players and the media, Bulgaria suggested this match to take place from 3rd to 15th February 2009. Possible hosts are Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Turnovo and Bansko.

In a letter sent to FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Ms. Lecheva stressed that all necessary financial guarantees are ready. Meanwhile, Bulgaria is surprised with the change of financial parameters for the match, which expanded to 300 thousand U.S. dollars, without clear argumentation.

Bulgaria to host Kamsky - Topalov match in 2009

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against the NSA, President Bush and Vice President Cheney on behalf of AT&T's customers to fight illegal wiretapping.

I know this is totally beside the point, but don't you wish that this actually was the NSA logo?

EFF sues Cheney, Bush, and the NSA to stop illegal wiretapping - Boing Boing

WASHINGTON — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade, his tax records show.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign today released 10 years' worth of tax returns for Biden, a senator from Delaware, and his wife Jill, a community college instructor. The Bidens reported earning $319,853 last year, including $71,000 in royalties for his memoir, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.

The Bidens reported giving $995 in charitable donations last year — about 0.3% of their income and the highest amount in the past decade. The low was $120 in 1999, about 0.1% of yearly income.

Over the decade, the Bidens reported a total of $3,690 in charitable donations, or 0.2% of their income.

Biden gave average of $369 to charity a year

The energy bill, boosting mileage by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon, passed the House 314-100 and now goes to the White House, following the Senate's approved last week.

Woo-hoo! 2020 is a long way off, but this increase has taken over 30 years to wrestle from the Republicans. Will it come to fruition? Will it narrow our range of choices to Scions and Saturns? Who the hell knows?! But at least we've finally gotten the auto lobby off their butts and motivated them to REALLY do something, and I mean more than just a few hybrids here and there.

-janelane, super-thrilled

Congress sends bill raising fuel efficiency standards to Bush - CNN.com

One of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works." Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the Earth.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said. He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science. "It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

Gore Gets A Cold Shoulder

I'm bored today so I decided to update my programming rules, make a 2.2 if you will, I know the smart ones out there never trust a 1.0 anyways...

My Rules (2.2):
1. Kludges that we'll fix in the next release never get fixed in the next release...

2. If you don’t do it right now, you (or some poor bastard that replaces you) will have to do it right later...

3. It always costs more to do it later...

4. You're not going to have more funding for the next release. (thanks Decius)

5. Beware of anyone in a suit...

6. The man in charge usually didn't get there by being better than everyone else; keep that in mind.

7. If you don't talk to your customers to see what will make them happy, then sooner or later someone else will...

8. Sales guys can be powerful allies for interoffice BS, but if you make yourself too available they will never leave you alone...

9. Management has no idea what the customer wants...

10. Engineering has even less idea what the customer wants...

11. Assume every engineer you work with is an idiot, try not to let on that you know...if you find engineers that are obviously not idiots, find a way to keep them...

12. Never outsource your core competency...

13. Laziness and incompetence are contagious...

14. No-one cares if you read Wikipedia all day every day if you get your work done on time...

15. If they do care, find another place to work...

16. Your code is not finished until you've tested it...

17. Never assume they have tested their code...

18. Simple regression testing is best done when it’s automated; it’s less error prone too.

19. Engineers that think lack of documentation is job security should be fired sooner rather than later (otherwise you'll make them right)...

20. Contrary to popular belief, third party libraries reduce portability of your code...

21. "Cool" is not a business case...

22. Engineering’s job is to say yes, no matter how stupid management's requests are...good engineers find ways to say yes that spotlight their intelligence and managements stupidity...(e.g. if they ask you to turn lead into gold, tell them you will if they allocate a few trillion dollars and a fusion reactor)...

23. The night before its due is probably not the best time to start integrating your code in a large project...

24. You can be really good at your job, and a dick, or you can be so so at your job and a really nice guy...you cannot be a dick and bad at your job...

25. Time estimation is really hard...it will take longer than you think it will...

26. Demonstrating that your competitors suck isn't enough to get anyone to buy your product...

27. Don't ship anything you're not proud of...

28. Your code will be used in ways you never thought of...plan accordingly...

29. If you can't settle on one way of doing something, do it both ways and make it a co... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]

My programming rules 2.2

Now that's a tower. It has been upgraded to eight legs (instead of four) which makes it a confusing lattice of steel at the base.

AT&T Long Lines: NRWYILNO

This document looks purely at the cost of the technical portions of Vista's content protection [Note B]. The political issues (under the heading of DRM) have been examined in exhaustive detail elsewhere and won't be commented on further, unless it's relevant to the cost analysis. However, one important point that must be kept in mind when reading this document is that in order to work, Vista's content protection must be able to violate the laws of physics, something that's unlikely to happen no matter how much the content industry wishes that it were possible [Note C].

Nicely put together article that avoids preaching most of the dogma around DRM.

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

AT&T just bought Cingular? Cingular was already owned by AT&T? Bellsouth owns who?! Let Stephen Colbert help you figure this out!

Awesome!

YouTube - Stephen Colbert explains the whole AT&T thing!

Like looking to see if a rifle is loaded by peering down the barrel, your screen can turn from a breathtaking visage of insight into a Gatling Gun of mind-scarring infinity-pain within the literal blink of an eye.

Or, as they say: ONCE YOU CLICK, YOU CANNOT UNCLICK.

This is a very entertaining and well written adventure.

Consider, then, what was going on here. Myspace, a site which is being used by people who don't know how to host or design, ends up with a gaping ass provided by a design firm which can't understand the nature of hotlinking (or of spelling), who have written to someone who can host, design and spell but are doing so with a demand that this person take action.

And this, my friends, is ass.

I love the analogy Jason makes in the post about pilots, passengers, and users of the Internet. I'd argue that running a site like this is a little like being an air traffic controller, making sure things don't collide mid-air. Taste and security collide with things on a regular basis over at MySpace.

Read more about the incident at Jason's blog.

Jason Scott Goatses MySpace