Search Episodes (The Great Hack)

DOSBox | In Depth Look

Added 02/04/12
1 Views

DOSBox | In Depth Look

Added 02/04/12
1 Views

DOSBox | In Depth Look

Added 02/04/12
1 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
5 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

Added 12/28/11
1 Views

Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964 This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy. One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night. Why Austerity? "Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth. But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s. It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled. Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels. For a one-percenter, what's not to love? Austerity Comes of Age The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades. But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform. It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term. With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd. The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: > Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation. And the British love it. What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States. And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: > "Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings." Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend. That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments? The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better. But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip. Death of a Delusion And then something else came into the picture: Reality. Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century. Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare. As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough. And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed. That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all. The Afterlife President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays. Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works. Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge. Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.

GNC-2011-12-01 #725 Foot in Mouth

Added 12/02/11
23 Views

Thank You - For the Occupation, For the Intensity, For Lettin'...

Added 11/25/11
2 Views

Thank You - For the Occupation, For the Intensity, For Lettin' Me Be Myself Again

[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 17:30:23 11/25/11
It's like the old-timers always said: Don't quit before the miracle happens. While the Arab Spring showed that people can still accomplish the impossible, Our political debate was frozen in corporate cynicism. Now everything has changed. For the United States, spring came in autumn. Who says miracles don't happen? Like a Prayer A few months ago I prayed for something. Granted, it wasn't the kind of prayer that's sanctioned by any ecclesiastical authority. And, okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a "prayer." I guess the technical term for it would be "blog post." But trust me, it was a prayer. I'd been asked to write something for the Fourth of July, and I wrote we have to fight a new war, a " war of independence from corporate politics ." To be honest, those words felt Utopian even as I wrote them. Still, I never doubted them. The words were born out of the desperate sense that so many of us shared, a sense that our society is collapsing. And that it will keep on collapsing unless we change the way we think. I wasn't arguing for any particular policy or platform. "The problem isn't just with politicians, or even the system," I said then. "The problem is dependence itself." Oh, come on. How starry-eyed can you get? Stop depending on politicians? Declare psychic and political independence from celebrity-driven politics and media-made leaders? I'd always considered myself a realist, but this was almost embarrassingly idealistic. Except for the fact that it happened. Passionate Intensity Like so many others, I had grieved and raged over the lack of commitment displayed by good people. Cynics, robber barons, and American warlords are hard at work degrading - and downgrading - this country. In a strange set of parallels, we were reenacting the stories of the Third World countries we'd invaded. Like them, we were becoming a nation where servile or fearful politicians served a cynical oligarchy while the people's way of life died all around them. Some might call it karma - or simply "payback." But whatever you call it, the forces of hate and greed were running wild. The "two-party" system seemed to offer nothing in response except a) posturing, b) surrender, and c) a politics of compromise that seemed to amount to little more than ... well, see "a)" and "b)", above. Good people were fighting for better policies, and I tried to play my part. But too many of us focused on the prose of politics and not its poetry. Meanwhile, too many politicians got lazy quoting Bill Clinton's hack line: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It can be, of course. But before our eyes, the "good" became the enemy of the "perfect" and the mediocre became the enemy of the good. Then the cynical became the enemy of the mediocre, and democracy began to die. Meanwhile the other side gained its momentum with every passing month, fueled by a pseudo-populist movement ginned up by corporate-funded political hacks. A nation that had rejected the politics of greed and oligarchy at the ballot box was even more suffocated by it than before. No wonder so many people were uninspired, discouraged, despondent. Some people quoted William Butler Yeats: The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The good people who did burn with passionate intensity were in danger of turning the torch on themselves. " The game is over," wrote Chris Hedges . "We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass." As boom times came back to Wall Street, depression - emotional as well as economic - entombed the majority. But the suffering of the majority turned invisible inside the Beltway, as politicians debated deficits in a broken economy. It was like debating water conservation while the house burned down. The Condition of Everything Miles of commentary have been written about the Occupy movement. As the occupations gained steam, people criticized them for their lack of specific policy demands. But they were right not to issue specific demands. They were declaring independence from a frame of mind, a set of assumptions that led to passive acceptance of an unacceptable system. And they had passionate intensity. I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again: When OccupyDC marched down K Street, in the early days of the movement, a young security guard asked an older one what they were protesting. "I'm not sure," said the older man. "But I think they're objecting to ..." He circled his hands to indicate the environment around him. ".... the condition of everything. " By objecting to the condition of everything, the Occupiers changed the political dialog in this country. By rejecting leaders and insisting on self-governance through General Assemblies, they taught us by example how to escape emotional dependence. Like William Butler Yeats, they understood that you can't distinguish the dancer from the dance. One of the movement's most articulate and forceful advocates is Chris Hedges. Recalling Democracy The Wisconsin uprising had been going on for months, even in the dark days of July. The miracle of Wisconsin is that it's still going on. People there occupied their capitol to protest laws designed to break the middle class, laws written by corporate America's "ALEC" division. Then they mounted recall efforts against recently elected GOP State Senators, reducing their majority and draining resources from their coffers. Now Gov. Walker is facing a recall. The struggle in Wisconsin isn't about "Democrats" against "Republicans." It's about resisting politicians that are wholly-owned subsidiaries of corporate America. The people of Wisconsin showed the country how to resist. Now they're showing us how to persist. And just this month, Ohio voters rejected an ALEC-inspired initiative to strip that state's workers of rights. Maine voters rejected a move to overturn election-day registration, another attempt to restrict the ability of lower-income citizens to vote. And Mississippi rejected a definition of prenatal rights so extreme that many anti-abortion advocates were disturbed by its implications for the rights, health, and safety of women. Like I was saying: Miracles. Radical Innocence But elections aren't the point. They can be a reflection of the change we need, but they're not the change itself. The real changes are personal. "When I remake a song," said Yeats, "it is myself that I remake." The Rolling Stones said "It's the singer, not the song." We misunderstood our own power. We were being distracted and manipulated by fear and anger. Our minds, our souls, were being manipulated by what the Native American poet and activist John Trudell calls "the mining of the essence." One of the reasons we were powerless is that we believed we were powerless. That's even true economically. "All money is a matter of belief," said Adam Smith. We needed to push our fear and anger away to see the obvious truths all around us: The corporations rule our political process. That our democracy is dying. That Wall Street is filled with people who broke moral (and sometimes actual) laws and forced the rest of the country to pay the price. We had to see with fresh eyes. "All hatred driven hence," wrote Yeats, "the soul recovers radical innocence." Our political process has become too cynical. Even reasonable and very moderate ideas favored by a majority of Republican voters, as well as others - a breakup of five or six too-big-to-fail banks, a public option health plan that's only available to one American in twenty - were declared impossible. We needed an infusion of radical innocence, the innocence of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. We sometimes think of innocence as something childlike and weak. But innocence has great power. Innocence changes the world. We needed that radical innocence,and we got it. What we do with it now is up to us. Can we commit ourselves to moving forward, to persevering against all odds? The future's unwritten. But we know what's happening right now. The political dialog has shifted in a way that seemed impossible a few months ago. I don't know how you feel about that, but I know how I feel. I feel thankful. So thankful, in fact, that I'm gonna let Sam & Dave tell you all about it. Take it away, fellas:

Xbox Live Hacked and Microsoft Buys Twisted Pixel - Press Paus...

Added 10/17/11
15 Views

Xbox Live Hacked and Microsoft Buys Twisted Pixel - Press Pause Daily

[LESS INFO] 15 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 10/17/11
Xbox Live accounts hacked and Splosion Man maker gets bought. SHOW NOTES: Story 1: Reports are coming in that some Xbox Live accounts are seeing unauthorized purchases going through. The hackers allegedly are accessing the users Microsoft points or their credit card they have on file. If you’re on Xbox live you should probably make sure the email address associated with your Microsoft live account is up to date, so you’re notified as SOON as any unexpected purchases go through. Keep your shit safe! http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/223947/updated-xbox-live-suffering-spate-of-hacked-accounts/ Story 2: In other Microsoft news, … one thing that has been said about Microsoft was that it needed more first party developers to help make great exclusive games for the 360. Well it looks like they are heeding that call with their latest studio acquisition. Microsoft just announced that they have purchased Twisted Pixel, makers of Splosion Man, Ms. Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, and the upcoming Kinect game Gunstringer. The Austin, TX based studio will now join the likes of Lionhead, Rare, and 343 in Microsoft’s stable of first party devs. Since their last four games have been 360 exclusives, this isn’t a complete shock. And if they can keep the great games coming, this can only be a win-win for both of them. Maybe they’ll make a super game with Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, and Gunstringer...using the Kinect to control all the characters!! …..Actually on second thought maybe they shouldn't ... http://www.1up.com/news/splosion-man-developer-twisted-pixel-acquired-microsoft That will do it for your daily dose of press pause, be sure to check out our live discussion show at twitch.tv/presspause tomorrow at 12 pm pacific. You can also find fully edited episodes over at our Youtube channel: youtube.com/presspausemevio .

315 - Yoink, AirDrop and LaunchBar Refresher [Introduction Only]

Added 09/30/11
31 Views

315 - Yoink, AirDrop and LaunchBar Refresher [Introduction Only]

[LESS INFO] 31 VIEWS | ADDED 10:39:20 09/30/11
[Introduction to Members Show] It’s a MacMontage this week - a collection of utilities, hints and tips that don’t warrant a show on their own. Yoink - A peek at a new application that makes copying files in Full Screen Mode a snip. AirDrop - Previously only available to newer Macs, this simple hack will open it up for all your Macs LaunchBar Refresher - Not still using LB just for application launching are you? This segment shows you some useful actions and services. Some great utilities featured in this week’s members tutorial **Yoink** - A very smart way of copying files around your system. Originally developed for use with Lion and full screen apps, Yoink pops out a handy side panel whenever you start to drag a file. Just drag the file to the side panel and it’s stored for copying somewhere else - a full screen app or somewhere else on your system. Configure the shelf to open on the left or right hand side of your screen, or under your mouse - very neat. If you’re quick, you can enter a prize draw to get one of 10 copies of Yoink available to ScreenCastsOnline members. Just send an email to screencastsonline+yoink@gmail.com before the 4th October to be entered into a prize draw. **AirDrop** - Previously only available to newer Macs, this simple hack will open it up for all your Macs. Using a simple terminal command, you can enable Airdrop to work on most Airport devices that don’t support the newer PAN (Personal Area Networking) protocols. There are some caveats but this is a great way to transfer files between your Macs on the same WiFi network. **LaunchBar Refresher** - Not still using LaunchBar just for application launching are you? This segment shows you some useful actions and services to get more out of LaunchBar. I take a look at some common actions and explain how to use "Instant Send" to act on files in the Finder. I also take a look at installing a Timer action, to enable you to run multiple timers through LaunchBar using an AppleScript created by Justin Blanton The segment also shows you two new services built into Lion that allow you to encode video and audio files right from within Finder, without the need for any third party applications, accessible via LaunchBar or via the standard OSX services. New to LaunchBar, is built in integration with Fantastical, the very smart calendar application that allows you to use natural language to set up your events. This segment shows you how to configure and use the Fantastical integration. Finally, if you're using LaunchBar or any other application launcher, why use the Dock? Following on from a suggestion from Pat Mahon, I show you how to change your dock configuration to remove those garish blue lights and just use your Dock to see what applications are running. Check out the segment to see what I mean!