VENTURE LIVE

Kosovar Independence and the Russian Reaction

February 20, 2008

By George Friedman

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• Kosovo, Russia and the West
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Apple's release of the Safari browser for Windows has been hard-tested by me for several weeks now, and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that recent releases have corrected a variety of earlier incarnations' deficiencies.

Advanced mouse functionality is now present, including forward/back button functionality, one-button searching (available on my Logitech VX Nano wireless laser mouse) and hyperscrolling.

All plugins which were available for, but somewhat erratic on, earlier releases now function flawlessly, including Java and Flash. Microsoft's Silverlight plugin has yet to be tested at this time.

This leads us to tne major area that remains a concern: the paucity of additional functionality through plugins and search providers. So far, only Yahoo and Google are available as search providers.

Still, Safari is now nearly as capable on Windows as it is on OS X, and makes a perfectly acceptable alternative to Firefox or even Internet Explorer 7.

    “Tim?”
    Tim Crosby looked up from his baby, a black 1968 Chevrolet Camaro SS. This was the fifth time. The fifth god damned time. He tried to keep an even keel despite the frustration. “Ye-e-e-e-s?” He set the wet rag in his hand on the cheap pine tool bench beside him and made a point of looking out the open garage door at her Murano out in the driveway.
He heard her creak the door between the garage and the kitchen a little further open as she leaned halfway out. “Where the hell did you put the bills?” She was wearing perfume.
    “Where are we supposed to be going?” He turned his head, knowing she’d be all dressed up for something. She always sprung this kind of thing on him at the very last minute and then bitched because he wasn’t ready for something she hadn’t bothered to inform him she wanted him to be ready for.
    Yep, sure enough – she was wearing a long silver dress, her long brown hair up and a silver hammer pendant on a braided silver cord dangling down into her prominently visible cleavage. She was stunning.
    And here he was in bare feet, ragged jeans and a filthy wife-beater, unshowered, unshaven and smelling like a guy who’s just finished digging around in the guts of an old car. Nice.
    “Jesus, Tiffany, you can’t – “
    She stepped fully through the doorway, hands on her hips, scowling. “I told you last week that we were going to dinner with my boss tonight! I put it on the calendar in the kitchen!”
    “Last week, when? While I was asleep? How long until we have to be there?”
    “We were supposed to leave five minutes ago! And I told you about this last Friday morning in the shower! “
    “Right! Because I can hear and remember things better when I’m half asleep with water shooting into my ears!”
    She turned and stalked away into the kitchen. He listened to the angry click of her heels across the tile and sighed, then made his way to the bedroom to get showered and changed. He’d shave in the car.

    “The bills are in the drawer in the kitchen.” he didn’t feel much like talking, but he was getting almost as tired of the petulant act she was putting on whose primary feature was the silent treatment.
She stared at the road. After awhile, though, she finally repeated, “The drawer… in the kitchen.”
    “Yep.”
    “And are you aware,” she started slowly but built up speed, “that there are a whole shitload of drawers in the kitchen?” Still staring straight ahead.
    “Hadn’t noticed.” He caught the turn of her head, her outraged expression, out of the corner of his eye. He was probably smirking, but couldn’t really tell.
    “I guess you think this is funny.” she accused. They were apparently almost Here; the Murano slowed, pulled onto a side street.
    “Have to take my amusement where I can.” he shrugged, scanning the entrance to the gated community they were approaching. They stopped at the call box.
    “Oh, I’ve got some ‘amusement’ in store for you…” she muttered, looking back over her shoulder at him with a look of unalloyed evil.

    The dinner had been uneventful; both had behaved themselves with decorum and restraint. Her boss had been impressed with her knowledge of geology, which far exceeded her duties as the manager of what he liked to think of as “his” Research Station.
    The ride home, too, had been peaceful enough… but there was still tension between them, and it had been rolling toward a crest for so long now that the wave had to break, and soon.
    It started as they pulled into the driveway. “I really wish you’d clean up your shit in the garage so I can get my car in there.” she opened.
    He sighed. “Why do you have to start with me? I’m tired, I really don’t feel like – ”
    “Sure.” she shut off the car, turned in her seat to fix him with an accusing look. “You just take up the whole damn garage for months and leave my car out in the driveway to be fucked with by anybody who – “
    “Oh, would you just fucking stop.” Now he was angry himself. “Exactly who is going to come along and fuck with your car all of a sudden? I don’t know if you’ve looked around on our street recently, but – “ he pointed next door – “Mercedes.” He pointed past her on the other side – “Porsche.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder – “Cadillac.” He pointed at the center console. “Fucking Nissan. Is it a Z, even? No. A minivan with an attitude. Yeah, I’m sure this is the first thing some little crackhead is going to gravitate to on this street; ugly, underpowered piece of shit that it is.”
    She turned, stepped out. “Fuck you.” She slammed the door and walked away, slammed the door between the garage and the kitchen, as well.
“Smooth.” Tim scolded himself, resting his elbow on the window frame and his head in his hand.

Monday Morning, 10:47 a.m.
    “Trouble at home?” Nick leaned over the edge of Tim’s cubicle.
Tim stopped typing and looked up. “Why do you say that?” He looked around; everyone was up and walking around. Not typically what one would expect to see in a JPMorganChase call center in the middle of a shift.
    “Because it’s been break time for about 30 seconds now and you’re still sitting there.” Nick slapped the top of the cubicle. “Come on, I’ll buy you a Mountain Dew and we can go cough at the smokers. Let’s go.”
    “Think they’ll ever get vodka in the machine to mix up the Dew?” Tim climbed out of his seat.
    They walked amidst the cubicles on their way to the vending machines. “We can dream. Uh oh.”
    “What?” Tim was a few steps behind Nick, and so it was that he didn’t see her until it was too late. “Oh, shit. What the hell is she doing here…” he rushed across the employee lounge and up to the smokers’ exit, reaching it a scant second after she’d nodded and smiled at an employee and stepped inside.
    He held up his employee keybadge, “Do you see this? Do you know what this is?!”
She shrugged, nonchalant. “Looks like a keypass to me. So?” She took a seat at a vacant table, crossing her legs and resting her cheek on her palm.
    “So do you happen to have one of these?” he asked in a hoarse, panicky whisper.
“Sure.” she held up her own – branded United States Geological Survey.
He threw up his hands and turned away – if she was caught in here, he would be the one to be written up. And did she give a damn? Well, apparently not! He turned back. “That. Is. Not. What I’m talking about! And you know that! Are you trying to get me fired?”
    “Please.” she rolled her eyes. “They’re not going to fire you because I got past their pitiful little security measure.”
    “And you’re willing to bet my job on that? I’m sorry, can you remind me again of who was accusing whom of being inconsiderate yesterday? And have you considered what they might do to you for trespassing on private property?”
    She rubbed her chin, apparently considering that possibility for the first time. She pointed a finger at him. “You have a point. Getting arrested would make it hard to get my packing done.” He felt like he’d been slugged in the stomach. He moved to take a seat, but she cut him off. “Don’t sit down.”
    He froze, his mind blank with shock, trying to figure out just what it was she was saying. He already knew, of course, had lived with the fear that this might happen for months now, but it was just… unthinkable.
    “Packing.” he finally repeated, desperate to say anything that would keep her talking.
    “Mm hm.” she nodded.
    “Packing, why?”
    “Because this isn’t working, Tim. We’re not working anymore. And right now…” she stood, but got up from the flat stool by carefully standing and sliding to the side rather than stepping forward. The movement stated silently that she was avoiding being close to him. “I can’t even stand the sight of you.”
    He thought he’d felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach before. He’d been wrong – this was what that felt like.
    He blinked, his eyes suddenly feeling very, very dry. He tried to say something, anything, but his throat was dry, too, and it felt like he was choking. There was no one else in the lounge with them now. All of the smokers who had been standing outside were gone, too.
    And she was leaving.
    He had to do something. To say something. “Can I – “ his voice broke. Damn voice. He tried again. “Can I call you?”
    It worked; halfway to the door, she stopped, but only turned her head to look at him sadly. She shook her head. “No.”

One month, six days later

    “Tim!” he wasn’t nearly close enough to waking to identify the sound of the front door of the house banging open and shut again until the second call of his name, “Yo, Tim!”
    He leaned up, rubbed a forearm across his sleep-cluttered eyes, then rolled off the big gray sofa in his living room to land in an undignified heap on the floor. “Whassaaugh.”
    “C’mon, man, up and at ’em. I brought some friends to meet you, and you’re not exactly making the most staggering first impression, son.” Nick brushed long brown hair from his eyes with one hand, setting a six pack of cheap domestic beer on Tim’s dusty coffee table with the other.
    “But it’s my day off…” Tim muttered absently, then shook his head. Finally, he climbed to his feet, looking around at his uninvited houseguests with a mixture of consternation and dumb confusion; then his eyes widened, spotting them. Two women, both extremely attractive: one standing about five foot two with a svelte figure and long, straight black hair, the other built almost identically – no… not almost. They were identical; twins. “Um…”
    “Tim, this is Sherri and Kerri Morricone. Sherri and I told her sister all about you… she wanted to meet you anyway.”
    Sherri punched Nick in the arm – not hard, but he winced like he’d been charlie-horsed by a pro boxer. Sherri smiled at Tim. “No pressure, Tim, let’s just catch a game, toss back some beer and chew on some pizza.” On cue, Kerri came out of the kitchen, holding an opened, ice cold beer out for him.
    He looked down at it, then up at her. She smiled at him and, slowly, he returned it, taking the beer. “Thanks. Okay.”
    “Atta boy.” Nick grinned. “Where’s the remote? Let’s fire that bad boy up.” He gestured toward the 48” flat screen television.
    “Yeah, it’s, um… actually, I don’t even know. Feel free to toss the couch, maybe it’s in the cushions or something. I’m gonna get some pants on.” He headed for the bedroom, beer in hand.
    “Aw, but the boxers are cute!” he couldn’t tell which one of the twins had said this, but it didn’t really stop a slow smile from forming. Mission accomplished, Nick. he thought. You actually made me forget her… well, for a minute, at least.
    The fact was, he realized as he climbed into a pair of faded jeans, that he still thought of his wife all the time. It was just too soon for anything else. So, he resolved himself to just relaxing on the couch with his buddy and his buddy’s female friends, loading up on beer and ‘za while taking in a good ballgame. Nothing wrong with that.
    He returned to find them clustered on the sofa; fortunately, Tiffany had insisted on the biggest damn couch she could possibly get her hands – and his money – on. Nick leaned against the right arm of the couch, with Sherri – Tim assumed it was Sherri, anyway – nuzzled against him. Kerri smiled up at him from the left arm of the couch, patted the space between herself and her sister.
    He got a better look at what the two women were wearing – also nearly identical. Short cutoff jeans shorts and gray sweatshirts, but with different messages on them. Sherri’s bore a logo of a woman standing over a kneeling man and the text, “H.B.I.C.”, whatever that meant. Kerri’s was a Sun Devils logo.
    There was some kind of tussling going on over the remote. Tim smiled, watching Nick and his girl play-wrestle over the thing; he waved off Kerri’s invitation to sit. “I think maybe I’ll just let them sort out who’s in charge before I jump in there and remind them both that it’s my remote.”
    “Oh…” Kerri grinned wickedly up at him. “You mean, you don’t know who’s in charge here?” Tim laughed and hiked his thumb at his own chest. Kerri shook her head, then snaked her ankle up between his calves, around the back of his knee, and gave a hard pull, toppling him onto the couch. Grabbing his elbows, she turned them both until she straddled him on the couch.
    Meanwhile, Sherri braced her arms and legs, having been pinned under Nick, and lifted herself and her boyfriend fully off the couch, now cradling him in her arms. Kerri grinned down at him and ruffled his hair, “We’re in charge, Timmy!”
    “Is that so?” The unexpected voice made the girls and Nick jump… it made Tim’s heart drop into his gut like a block of ice. Four heads turned to the figure standing in the open living room doorway. “I think I’ll have to disagree.”
    “Um… hi!” Kerri offered.
    “Hi.” Tiffany Crosby had never looked better – or sounded more coldly condescending – to Tim Crosby. “I’m gonna ask you to get up off my husband now.”
    “Okay.” Poor Kerri didn’t have much to say about it, not in the face of the look she was on the receiving end of. She climbed up from the couch with an apologetic smile to Tim, stood for a moment, realized that sitting next to him was going to most likely be a non-starter as well, and then headed for the door. Nick and Sherri reluctantly followed suit, Sherri still carrying Nick in her arms like a small child.
    “I owe you for the pizza and beer, Nick.” Tim offered, but Nick cheerfully waved that aside. “It was nice to meet you, girls.” Tiffany, mercifully, just watched them go with a bemused look on her face, then turned back to Tim with a smug expression.
    “So that’s what you’ve been up to since I left?” she asked, a touch haughtily, “Drinking beer, eating junk food and wrestling with the Wrigley Spearmint Twins?”
    “Pretty much.” he said quietly, looking away and heading for the bedroom. She caught his arm – her grip was surprisingly hard. He turned back, a little aghast. “And you, apparently, have been working out.”
    “Could have kicked both those girls’ asses, and your friend’s, too.” she boasted, smiling at him. “You’re not running away from me. That looked like fun, what your friend’s girlfriend was doing.”
    He tried to pull away, but it wasn’t happening. “What, carrying him around like that? Looked weird. Unnatural.” She wasn’t letting go of him, and the perplexed look in his eyes must have been what made her laugh.
    “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, pulling him in tighter to wrap her other arm around him. “I think it’s only natural that a woman should take charge of the foolish boy she’s with.” She released his arms, quickly crouching to get a better grip on his waist, and hoisted him into the air, his arms flailing for a moment.
    “The hell has gotten into you!” he gasped. He struggled briefly, then paused. He wasn’t going anywhere. She walked them both to center them to the sofa, then plopped down on it, holding him in her lap. “Did you like it when that little girl was rough housing with you?”
    He hadn’t thought about it, honestly, and said so.
    “Well, I’m enjoying this quite a bit.” she announced. She let him sit up just enough to move her arm under his back, from the small of his back to between his shoulder blades, and then placed the other hand under his thighs, standing easily with him on her hands.
    Before he could argue or even ask what she was doing, she pushed him up to her eye level, braced her arms and legs, and then pushed him still higher, until she held him on straight arms overhead. “How’s the view up there?” she giggled. He didn’t dare to so much as turn his head to look down at her; instead, he trembled like a kitten at the end of a very long branch.
    “Oh, while I have your attention,” she said, taking a step and compelling a short, sharp cry of fear and dismay from him, “let me make this perfectly clear: you’re mine.”
    She started to walk them toward the bedroom. “Understood?”
    He could barely breathe, didn’t even trust himself to nod acknowledgement, but somehow managed to do both, with minimal movement. “Got… it.”
    “Good.” she cooed, nudging the door open with the toe of her shoe before tossing him bodily onto the bed, which protested loudly. It protested only slightly less when she leaped after him.

We get the first outright purchase of a film. I use that to buy the house, then I sell it back to you -- for $1. I keep working, do the next film. We get another place, here in AZ. Maybe one of the lofts here in downtown Tempe, for the winter when it's just ridiculously cold everywhere but here. Or, if you're more for a forested setting, there's towns north of here like Vale and Pine Top. We could even see about transferring the boy down here, let him have the run of the loft during the school year, he could probably easily make it into ASU, and ASU is a decent school.

This is the plan. I'm following this plan, if you like it. If there's something you like better, I'll put elbow grease into making that happen instead. Point is, nobody should be in charge of what you do, when/where you do it, or who you do it with, except you. And there's all kinds of ways people try to be in charge of you, my Mistress. You hate manipulation, but the fact is there's someone manipulating you all the time now, he's been doing it for months. You know it already, that's why you've been depressed. You're stuck, and I aim to get you un-stuck and set you free of that. Whether it means he sees what he's done and changes his ways and you get free that way, or whether you come with me on this adventure, or whether I help you get loose and then you go your own way off with somebody else, that won't change whether or not i lend a hand.

Of all the times I tried to rescue you in a world where you didn't need rescuing, this time I'm sure -- you need a hero. And this time, I will not fail.

Second Life's latest rendering engine, Windlight, is a visual revolution for the metaverse. Reflectivity, translucency, lighting and atmospheric effects all receive a tremendous upgrade under the new engine.

Currently in First Look beta status, issues that apparently need to be addressed including object rezzing and optimization for mid-level systems (forget about running this on anything less than a 256mb video card and 2Gb of RAM, you'll need a draw distance closer than the end of your virtual nose on less hardware than that.)

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