Some of you may remember Southland, the (former) NBC drama that I wrote about several months ago. Its second season got canceled by NBC late last year after they’d already filmed half the episodes, in a truly stupendous WTF moment.

The show later got bought by cable network TNT, who agreed to re-air the first season and air the episodes of the second season that were already shot; no decision has yet been made on whether or not to produce new episodes… but hope springs eternal.

At the time, NBC’s explanation for canceling Southland was that the show was “too dark” and “too gritty” for prime-time network television. It was originally supposed to air at 10pm, but got briefly moved - at least in theory - up to 9pm because of The Great Jay Leno Debacle.

Not a lot of people believed NBC’s explanation that, once they’d seen the first two episodes of season two, they didn’t feel it fit well with the network at 9pm - everyone figured it was all down to Jay Leno.

The first two episodes of season two have now aired on TNT… and NBC’s original explanation is a bit more believable, now.
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I have a deep and shameful secret: Back in the day, I used to play RPGs. I was never obsessive about it, but, yes, I did enjoy them.

“Back in the day”, I might add, was the misty days of yore when there was still “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons” - and then later a second edition of the latter.

For people who’ve grown up on AD&D’s Second Edition - or the current incarnation, especially - ye olde red-box D&D must seem incredibly primitive. To be honest, it seemed incredibly primitive back in the nineteen-mumbles, and it was. Many of the game systems that came after were, in part, efforts to inject a small amount of realism into gaming, and the trend has continued into the computer era - Dragon Age: Origins shows how far we’ve come since the old TRS Forgotten Realms games of the 1990s.

I still can’t help but feel that a certain amount of realism is missing, though.
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I know it’s not a subject that’s of terribly high interest to everyone, but I figured I’d do a couple of paragraphs on properly fitting and fit-testing a respirator. This is not meant for people who are required to use one at work, but aimed at urban explorers, in particular - and anyone else who might have the desire to use respiratory protection in an avocation of their choosing.

The reason for this is simple - there has been a goodly amount of discussion in urban exploration circles on respirator (or gas mask) choice, and while this is a good thing, in that urban explorers are becoming more safety-conscious, nobody seems to be taking a particular interest in how to properly fit the damned things, thereby potentially negating the protection on offer.

So…
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In the wake of the Cryptome brouhaha with Microsoft over the publication of the latter’s “Online Global Criminal Compliance Guide”, all sorts of people have been complaining about Microsoft’s heavy-handed DMCA tactics, and how you’d really think they would know better than to try and bluff Cryptome, of all places.

Unfortunately, this has also brought out some anti-copyright activists - or more properly, some people who are masquerading as anti-copyright activists…
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As you (probably) know, the Department of Justice released on Friday the “final report” for the “Amerithrax” investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. Much of the report details evidence against the late Dr. Bruce Ivins, who the FBI alleges was the sole perpetrator of the attacks.

I say “alleges”, of course, because Ivins was never actually convicted, or even indicted; he committed suicide before either had occurred.

Over the weekend, a lot of people on various websites have taken issue with parts of the investigation, the report, and its findings. Some of these folks lean rather heavily towards the conspiracy-theorist end of things, about which the less said, the better. Others have rather more reasoned and rational criticisms, and it’s some of these that need, I think, to be read with a fairly jaundiced eye.

Why? For the most part, they’re coming from people with axes to grind, or who represent special interests whose causes are furthered by taking umbrage at one or more parts of the investigation and its findings.
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