links for 2010-05-21

• SEXUAL FREEDOM: Malawi gay couple get maximum sentence of 14 years
  Once again, a government gets in the way of behavior by consenting adults. I view this as no different than shutting down a strip club, or telling someone he can't smoke on his own property because he opened it up to the public. 14 years in jail is disgusting — why are countries still giving aid? Let them die, if this is how they act.
  (tags: politics SexualFreedom sex gay gays homosexual homosexuals gayMarriage marriage Malawi OverlyHarshPunishments freedom BBC news articles)
• WAR ON DRUGS: Swat Teams and the Military : Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  It turns out that our SWAT teams raid american citizens with fewer restrictions than our military in Afghanistan has while raiding homes there.

  Isn't it great that Nixon declared a war on ourselves, and 40 years later we're still fighting it, and ruining innocent lives with our tactics? What a sick society we've become.

  (tags: politics WarOnDrugs WarInAfghanistan raids restrictions forcedEntry afghanistan drugs freedom SWAT SWATteams militarization TheAgitator news articles police)
• EYE CANDY: Stereoscopic Images
  Animated GIFs that give a 3-d stereoscopic effect. Cool stuff.

  These are NOT stereograms, but simply animations between two halves of a stereoscopic image.

  This page really challenged my browser to keep up…

  (tags: eyeCandy media pictures stereoscopic 3D 3-D Abduzeedo posts)
• PERSONAL: CONCERTS: John The Canadien's review of the Chemlab concert we went to
  (tags: personal concerts reviews music scene JohnTheCanadien blog posts bands Chemlab Rock&RollHotel)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR: House votes to give money to states that forcibly collect DNA samples from ALL arrestees
  Remember how this went down in UK? There was a surge in arrests under various new laws. 90% of people were released — but they were arrested long enough to forcibly take a DNA sample and add them to the government database.

  NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRAT voted against this, but Republicans did. Neither party is big on civil liberties; both parties want to increase the government's role in life. Bush not being president doesn't stop the neverending rollback of civil liberties.

  As pointed out, if they need your DNA to determine if you are guilty, that falls under existing law. This is about every arrest, even a non-justified arrest.

  Most humorous comment: "Wouldn't the results from a DNA test of a cheek swab of someone arrested for prostitution be, uh, somewhat confusing?"
  -Locke2005 (849178)

  Also: "You can vote right wing or you can vote left wing but both wings are on the same bird."

  (tags: politics TechnologyWar DNA arrests Congress Democrats legal legislation Slashdot news articles rights)
• TECHNOLOGY: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists – first time synthetic DNA has complete control of cells — they replicated a billion times
  This is a major, major breakthrough.
  Once we can create life with technical precision, mother nature combined with technology will accomplish unimagined things that were previously not possible with technology alone.
  (tags: politics technology nature life DNA genetics artificialLife biotech science breakthroughs BBC news articles CraigVenter)
• VIDEO: PC HISTORY: Evolution of PC Audio – As Told by Secret of Monkey Island
  Awesome! They show the same riff in 1-voice PC sound, 3-voice Tandy sound, up through 8, 16, and 32 bit sound, up until 44kHz CD-quality audio. It's quite impressive seeing the card required to produce the technology, and hearing how each one is slightly better than the last. The 1988 PC sound sounds like a Nintendo, basically.
  (tags: media audio video YouTube videos games videoGames MonkeyIsland hardware technology sound soundCards AdLib SoundBlaster 8088 PC Tandy Gravis history)