UP2VPS

Do not, under any circumstances, do business with this company.  They advertise on their site a 99.9% uptime SLA guarantee, but (a) they can't live up to this promise; and (b) they do not do anything to compensate their customers for their inconvenience when they don't.  I experienced no less than 10 hours of system downtime from Oct 4 - Oct 19.  (99.9% uptime would only allow 20 minutes of downtime in this period).

An SLA, for the uninitiated, is a "Service Level Agreement."  They promise, as part of the contractual obligation with their customers, to provide a defined level of service; in this case, 99.9% uptime.

Read on for the full details.

Firing squads in Florida?

Not satisfied with the current methods employed to kill people in Florida, state representative Brad Drake wants to bring back firing squads.

Secularism and Ethics

An article in Der Speigel discusses research into differences in how secular and religious people think, and how this impacts views on ethics.

(Thanks to Lara for the link!)