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Interesting figures, but opposite to reality.

According to
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2005/02/ 07/daily51.html

Dell's 2005 profit was $3.3 billion. Or roughly $1B per quarter, the figure you're probably thinking of.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11results .html

Apple's 2005 profit was $1.3 billion.

There's a reason it's so expensive...

American companies seem to be making a habit of broadsiding foreign companies who do business in the US. Take the case of Zi Corporation vs. Tegic (an AOL subsidiary) which resulted in a similar payout even though the patent in discourse was the silliest thing.

YEAH, that bastard never helps anyone except himself.

One of the authors of the Washington Post article cited above is Rita Katz, director of the stupidly named "The Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), which seems to be an asinine play on SETI. The SITE website is actually very light on real original content. As I revisited it tonight, I found that they have given citation for their copy and paste of the US State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 Report, which is the entire contents of SITE's "terrorism library". A year ago, they did not offer this bit of enlightening data. This should be enough to question the veracity of the whole story.

Katz obtained a degree from the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University, and is speaks Hebrew and Arabic. She emigrated to the US in 1997. She has both personal and financial issues which could bias her analysis.

• Katz is Iraqi born, and her father was tried and executed as an Israeli spy, whereupon her family emigrated to Israel.
• Katz is/was a paid consultant for the law firm, Motley-Rice, which file a 1 trillion dollar lawsuit on behalf of the 911 WTC victims.
• Katz is author of the book Terrorist Hunter (HarperCollins, 2003) in which she writes of infiltrating US-based Arab groups to investigate terrorist connections as a private investigator, and receives a plug for the book in every bio blurb that is published with her articles.

Katz got her terrorism expert start working for Stephen Emerson, who himself has credibility issues.

Katz was the anonymous source for a 60 Minutes segment that alleged a chicken farm supported terrorism, and for which both CBS and Katz were sued by Gainesville, Georgia based Mar-Jac Poultry Inc., as well as two Virginia-based muslim charity orgs, for libel.

Katz was also a principle player an an egregious example of of post-911 governmental misuse of prosecutorial powers in the case brought against a Saudi Arabian Computer Science doctoral student at the University of Idaho, Sami al-Hussayen.

Al-Hussayen was charged with giving material support to terrorist, for doing volunteer web mastering of the site of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization which the government has never charged. He was also charged with 11 minor visa violations, one being that his student visa didn't allow him to work, and he had received $300 from the Islamic Assembly of North America spread out over his five years of volunteer work for it.

The jury in Idaho acquitted on all three terrorism charges, and 3 of the visa charges, but hung on the remaining 8 visa charges.

The main thrust of the material support charges stemmed from the website Al-Hussayen worked on having published 4 fatwas by 4 radical immans on it. A government expert witness blew holes in that theory when he admitted that he had published the very same speeches on his anti-terrorism website.

When Katz testified, she admitted to the same visa violations that Al-Hussayen was charge with, only she had earned real money in violation of her entry terms.

Katz's testimony ended Friday with questioning about her own visa problems when she entered the United States. Katz testified that as a new immigrant in 1997, she misunderstood work permit requirements related to her visa and was employed, in at least one job and possibly two, before she was legally authorized to work. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that she detailed those problems in her autobiographical book, in which she expressed disgust for burdensome government re

Heres a nice little article from Austin Business Journal absolutely refuting your claim

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2002/04/ 08/smallb1.html

"During the Kosovo war, for example, we were regularly receiving information from people on the ground, inside Serbia and Yugoslavia. We could tell when an airplane took off from Aviano, Italy, when it crossed over the Croatian border, when it dumped its bombs and when it returned," Friedman says.

THats not Human Intelligence?

Eh, actually, I spoke way too soon about any of this.

We may be seeing a TON of jobs come back to America, making this a moot discussion, I just had someone send THIS to me:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2006/02 /13/focus2.html

How about the new Mac mini, which has a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo or 1.66GHz Core Duo, 512MB RAM (expandable to 2GB), a combo drive or DVD±R/RW SuperDrive, up to 120 GB drive, DVI/VGA/composite/S-Video out on Intel GMA950 graphics (up to 1920x1200), 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, gigabit ethernet (!), four USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 (Yes, FireWire is here to stay, folks), analog and digital (S/PDIF) in/out, and an IR remote with Front Row media center software that supports sharing music, photos, and videos between libraries on any other machine on the local network, starting at $599 ($579 govt/education), all in the same tiny form factor as the old Mac mini (6.5"x6.5"x2")?

And a freaking set of speakers and a $99 leather case for the iPod are the "most interesting"? ;-)

I love how the submission is like "IPOD SPEAKERS", "LEATHER IPOD CASE", and then at the end, "oh yeah, and media center Intel-based Mac minis, too". ;-)

What I want to know is what Apple's going to do with its new 107,000 square foot Tier IV data center... iTunes Movie/Media Store, anyone?

Peak Oil could be 2005/2006, but remember, just because its peaked doesn't mean economies that can afford to pay for it wont get their fix.

Betting against the bull can hurt, I want to see all these gloomy peak-oilists short sell stock and make billions on the impending downfall peakers predict.

I fail to understand why people fear peak oil and get all gloomy, like humanity will just give up and die out and not find other ways such as:

microbes

nuclear

wind

ocean current

fusion

shale oil

tar sands

mile deep rigs

etc.

To play devils advocate

Back at you...

If you sent a letter through the US mail. They would find out similar information without opening the letter.

No... they *could*... but it is not reasonable to think that they *would* because it would be too labor intensive to do so with very little to show in return.

Also, they would not even consider doing this with the mail becasue it would be painfully obvious who should pay for the ability... them.

However, not only do they do this with email because "it is easy"... they also cram the cost of being able to do it onto the carrier because "it is easy".

Sure it is... if you pay for the setup to do so.

In the end, it is another hidden tax from the "tax break" party... and the money goes directly to their contributors.

NTP and their ilk go after the big guys, who couldn't care less about anyone else. The big guys would be happy to see the patent system defanged, because then money decides, and the small players like me can be swatted aside, whereas now they have to think twice before they copy a good idea.

This is not to say I think things are hunky dory right now - the whole NTP thing could have been prevented if the patent office has enough money to speed review (oh wait, the big boys aren't actually clamoring for more money for the patent office, because that way the machine can break down more spectacularly); an open-publication with open review of filed patents as the IEEE is proposing.

But I am saying that the big boys are using those legitimate issues as a smokescreen for the real goal - make it easier to screw over the small inventors.

When I was a kid, "Westinghouse" was the name on an eyesore of a building near the Buffalo airport.

What's the value, to you, of your generous holidays, your lack of god-bothering, your incredible beaches and wonderful women? Add that to your salary and see if it doesn't move you closer to the range mentioned in the article.

Quality of life in many US cities is not so hot. Also, those salaries are required because the cost of housing is so crazy right now (median home cost in Silicon Valley is $733,000). Employees have to be "well" paid when compared to places that have better quality of life or lower cost of living indexes. It doesn't mean that these employees are necessarily better off.

That said, I also wish I made that much...

I'm sure people are just going to be lining up to pay AOL for the privilege of sending mail to its users. I'm also sure that users are not going to switch when they find out that their friends can't mail them because they or their ISP did not pay the AOL tax. Yes indeed, this plan is going to be so popular. I'm sure the spammers are just quaking in their gold-plated boots.

I was agreeing with you until I realized you were being sarcastic. AOL has 19.5 million subscribers paying $21.95/month for the service; many of these customers have plenty of money and aren't very bright. Hell yes, companies will be willing to pay to send mail to these people.

AOL is losing customers - 6 million in the past three years - but I suspect this has largely been due to increased demand for broadband, rather than customer dissatisfaction. The rest of us may hate AOL's service, but their customers are generally happy - they just wish it was faster.

I'm afraid i can't point you to the specific patents that gemstar owns but i just quickly googled "gemstar tvguide patents" and got a lot of references to suits filed by gemstar. Here is a small selection of news stories, most of which seem to be from around 2002 (i would investigate further, but this tends to wind me up ;)

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2002-01-31-gem star.htm
http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2003 /06/09/daily7.html
http://www.socaltech.com/fullstory/0002006.html
http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_110.html

And an example of them losing:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:87727511/GEMSTAR-T V+GUIDE+LOSES+PATENT+RULING+OVER+INTERACTIVE+TV+PR OGRAM+GUIDES.html

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Amazon pays $40m in patent settlement. HP pays $141m in patent settlement. Digene Corp. pays Georgetown University $7.5m plus royalties in patent settlement. Medtronic pays $1.35 billion in patent settlement. I mean, I don't want to call you a liar, but it seems to me, just kinda, jumps out at me, maybe I'm just mistaken, but it seems like patents are worth more than the paper they're printed on.

I've said it before (check my post history) and I'll say it again. Slashdot is the Fox News of Patents. It's just a bunch of people standing around a burning barrel bitching about something they don't (or refuse) to understand.

And no shit nobody pays any attention to that.

But if you ask anybody around Slashdot, it's because Slashdot has the geniuses while they system is filled with idiots. I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that begins to meet the symptoms of schizophrenia.

But don't let me slow anybody down. By the way, I'm in no way associated with but recommend Patently-O. Try understanding the system that you hate so that you don't end up making statement like:

For example, it's not unusual to word a patent in such a way that a genuinely innovative company that would not even compete with the patent 'taker' will have to go and license (overbroad patenting by design).

I mean seriously, WTF. Please show one legitimate example of this . Don't be like this guy. Know what you're talking about.

If enough customers refuse to complete sales, either the Death Star explodes (terminating everyone), or the policy gets changed.

"Customers tell us the practice of asking them for names and addresses is time consuming and annoying and is not something that endears them to us," Leonard Roberts, chairman and CEO of Fort Worth-based RadioShack, said in a statement. "Asking for names and addresses was a barrier to building superior customer relationships."

- Radio Shack, 2002

If this were truly a concern in Texas, the annual Sales Tax revenue would be falling (oh wait, it's not) and we wouldn't have a surplus that both the Republican and Democrat governor candidates keep coming up with ideas to spend it on. http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2004/06/ 14/daily3.html Let's try a new take, refund the money. Oh, and while we're at it, let's lower property taxes and re-vamp Robin Hood. That's something the regular session and special sessions couldn't accomplish, instead spending time voting in new laws on how revealing high school cheerleaders uniforms can be and banning suggestive cheers.

Keeping cool while in armor is not just a military problem. Admittedly, the kinds of protection are distinctly different. But an integrated armor with ventilation channels is possible.

You're lying.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2004 /08/09/story4.html

And for those that think that they can get "malpractice" insurance for this type of thing (more properly known as "Errors and Omissions" or "Professional Liability" insurance), many insurers canceled policies or refused to issue new ones prior to Y2K if you were involved in the computer industry.

See http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/1998/10/0 5/story4.html?page=1 for an article explaining the issue. In my case, I tried to get coverage in 1999...I was denied it because I was a computer programmer. Even though the project I was working on wasn't Y2K related, I couldn't get coverage. And a few people I knew suddenly found themselves without coverage...they received a form letter indicating their policies were canceled, effective immediately.

Bottom line: just because you have purchased insurance, don't expect them to be there when you need it.

What else you ask?
Uhhh, I just thought of an important one. What about "how to make money?"

On this point, I think the example of Zope is illustrative. Investor Hadar Pedhazur was willing to pony up venture capital to fund Zope Corporation, on the condition that they open-source Zope. I'm not really a Zope fan, but the idea of an investor requiring a company to open-source their principal asset struck me as a hard-dollar vote for the value of OSS.

See this for refs:

http://www.faqs.org/docs/ZopeBook/IntroducingZope. html ("Zope History" section)

More detail:

http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stori es/1999/05/24/focus4.html

The lawyers representing the RIAA, Shook Hardy & Bacon, ARE the lawyers representing the tobacco companies: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2005 /07/25/focus1.html

Reality check:

The recording industry has been repeatedly and consistently been involved in crime, including bribery, theft from artists, and murder.

The recording industry has a long history of involvement with organized crime. Example: Morris Levy, a longtime Genovese crime-family associate and recording industry "legend."

The recording industry has been repeatedly accused itself of corrupting the values of youth, and even inciting violence. But in those cases, it claims the protection of freedom of expression -- a freedom they have worked hard to deny to programers and consumers through outragous legislation and restrictive technologies.

With this record, without even getting into the lies they have spread, accusations from the recording industry have little credibilty as far as I am concerned.

What can we do? Support the EFF and the FSF.

1. A very targetted voting anomaly, sufficient to swing the election.
2. A broad voting-pattern discrepancy between counties that used Diebold machines, and counties that used paper ballots.

1. It would require the participation, flawless execution, and total silence of thousands of people, - officials in every county in which voter fraud was attempted. And not just the ones who pulled off this nationwide fraud, but also those who were "approached" to do so, and refused. Not one of them could make a mistake, get caught, or speak out. Not one.
2. It would require the non-involved local officials be completely unaware of fraud going on under their nose.
3. By the end of the day, the exit polls ended up being very close to the actual election outcome. In addition, most polls prior to the election showed Bush winning by between 1-5 points. A vast voter fraud effort would require we believe the pre-election polls, exit polls and election outcome were all wrong...despite being almost exactly the same.

• Diebold's election-systems division is "run by a registered Democrat"
• Mark Radke--Director of Marketing for Diebold Election Systems--has an exclusively Democratic donation history, having donated close to $10,000 to Democrats since 1995--when he was with Fulbright and Jaworski--including the legal limit of $2000 to John Kerry in the recent campaign. [2000-2004: $4,250] -- [1995-1999: $5,600]

"Bought off the Bush DoJ?" You're insane .. Jobs is a huge Democrat. He is a personal friend of Bill Clinton and was an advisor to the Kerry campaign. I seriously doubt he has any grease in the Bush administration whatsoever.

The BAE design includes a number of high-tech components. It calls for 300 486-class computers distributed in eight control rooms, a Raima Corp. database running on a Netframe Systems fault-tolerant NF250 server, a high-speed fiber-optic ethernet network, 14 million feet of wiring, 56 laser arrays, 400 frequency readers, 22 miles of track, 6 miles of conveyor belts, 3,100 standard telecars, 450 oversized telecars, 10,000 motors, and 92 PLCs to control motors and track switches.

Let's make some educated guesses here. How many PCs? 300? Good grief! Later in the article it says the PCs were running OS/2. So what? This is just bad architecture, regardless of OS. So many parts, so many points of potential failure. And the NetFrame Systems "fault tolerant" server is simply...a glorified PC. (It's X86, ~300 MHz P2, and likely running Windows NT, according to other sources.) This article has more on the sad fate of NetFrame.

There's nothing even close to a mainframe computer in this baggage handling system. The New York Times sucks again!

. . .but most especially the company's announcement that it will shortly sell another $4 billion in shares

Don't worry, Hollywood! Fewer and fewer will be watching your movies for free in the future. Since we now know that Hollywood movies have been steadily going to hell, we know that movie piracy will soon end, since your crap will nolonger be worth watching at all, free or otherwise.

That 50% cannot be even close to correct if over 51% of the US is on broadband and there are so many people in broadband access areas that choose to use dialup still.

Perhaps the savings in VOIP will help people phase out their dialup accounts in favor of broadband thereby increasing demand which will increase the value to companies who want to put money in the "last mile" residents but just couldn't make the numbers work until now.

They have joined Darl in the "if you can't beat em, sue em" club.

This is what happened to the original company.

schools all over have been scrambling to find new sources of funding

Maybe they should start by using the money they have better.

[Yet. People are rather creative, and we often don't give them enough credit. Look at how transmitting numbers across phone lines has become a trillion dollar industry.]

That's the whole point. "Yet" doesn't cut it for the millions of people put out of work by globalization and who currently are stuck with lower paying service sector jobs (which are the bulk of new jobs being created). See this documentation for proof: http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0714/economy.html

You can't pay rent and pay for your health care on Mickey D's. To wit: the average price of new homes is far, far and away greater than the average income can finance (by traditional means). See this for documentation regarding California - the entire nation is seeing similar patterns: http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stori es/2005/05/02/daily27.html

Everything else in life is also catching up with or passing, cost-wise, the average wage. See this for documentation: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snap shots_12172004

Wages are stagnant for the most part, except for the handful of rich who now account for the majority of the growth in US tax income. See this for proof: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3138232.stm

Meanwhile, you want those without jobs and who are competing against six billion others in the greatest game of musical chairs EVER, to believe you, and follow your ideology, based on a "not yet" answer?

Do you do business with your customers by saying "not yet"?

[Wow did I miss the nanotech revolution? Right now I think that industry, as well as genetics, are still in their early stages. Where the internet was probably in the 80's.]

It doesn't matter what stages it gets to. Automation and offshoring will kill any further domestic job growth. Mark my words on that.

Tell me, why would anyone hire very many people in the US when
a) You can hire work overseas cheaper, and with no workplace safety laws, pollution laws and no benefits
b) India has a ton of college graduates?

There is really no reason for a corporation to hire anyone here except sales people to contact customers in the US directly. You'll see what I mean in the near future if offshoring is not legally clamped down on.

[And we replaced human welders who made those cars with robot ones. There is no giant welding robot arm industry for those people who were displaced. Sometimes it's obvious what change will bring, other times it isn't.]

That is your theory. Here's reality. What it is bringing now is underemployment - a lot of formerly high paid white collar workers stuck in service mcjobs.

Soon you will find that this translates into the majority of citizens not being able to afford goods and services. The warp and woof of consumer buying volumes you see today are nothing compared to what's coming if high paying jobs keep disappearing and this musical chairs game keeps escalating.

[The IT industry won't evaporate completely, and in fact has an opportunity to continue growing domesticlly and globally. With globalization communications networks are becoming more complex, and businesses are looking towards custom solutions. Also, consulting businesses will be a growth market in legal, technical, and marketing fields.]

Growing domestically? Ever see how many resumes exist for a single IT job? I'm a project manager, I filter through this shit every day, and I can smell a person who has mad skills and a family to feed. For every one I give an interview I have to pass on ten other qualified people, and then another ninety unqualified people.

Those unqualified people will never be qualified bec

I'm saying that a white male would feel a little bit more comfortable going against the status quo than she is.

Actually, there is a (to me, reasonable) argument that women are more likely to be whistleblowers than men.

Same company.

"Four-year-old Starwave has made a name for itself by co-developing the ESPN SportsZone Web site, as well as sites for the NFL and the NBA. Previously, the company also developed CD-ROM titles, but that line of business was abandoned after sales of its critically acclaimed four titles fell short of expectations."

From: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/1997/05 /26/story6.html

http://www.gao.gov/htext/d0482.html
http://www.ssa.gov/oig/executive_operations/eyeono ig/eyeoig10162002.htm
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/09/ 16/daily26.html

Learn to google.

For people like me (non US) who did not know what this "Brown"-stuff was all about:
http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stori es/2002/02/04/daily35.html

"At UPS, brown is more than a color -- it's a tangible asset that people associate with all the things that are good about our brand,"
Shit... (no puba intended) this reminds me the film "Coming to America" (http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0094898/quotes)whe re Akeem says "When You Think of Garbage, Think of Akeem".

Amazon.com - E-commerce pioneer seeking to offer the world's largest selection of products online. for details.

AvantGo - Mobile applications for handheld devices.

DynDNS.org - One of the world's largest providers of free and premium Dynamic DNS services.

Findory - Personalized news and blogs aggregator. Findory learns what kind of content you like by the pages you read.

Live365.com - The world's largest Internet radio website.

Salon.com - Online magazine covering news, politics, technology, art, sex and health; winner of numerous web awards.

Weta Digital - Weta Digital are well known as the special effects people behind the Lord of the Rings films. At his OSCON 2004 keynote, Milton Ngan of Weta Digital thanked some technologies, including Mason, which is used as part of their intranet.

A

AcuTrans.net - Home page for AcuTrans, a company providing an online content management system integrated with transcription services (built with Mason) for business, legal, medical, and self-insured companies.

Adventist.org - The official web site of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Alhazred - Progressive music project being produced with open source/free software

Alzabo.org - Home page for Alzabo data modelling tool.

American Lung Association of Washington - Assuring lung health for the people of Washington state through research, education, community service and advocacy.

Apartments - Apartments for rent by RentersInc.com. Free apartment search engine and apartment guide.

arabellan - Web presence of Ryan "Exide Arabellan" Zander, a graphical artist.

astrojax.com - amazing fun and action game - community website with lots of features.

Autismeinfocentrum.nl - Information- and documentationcentre about autism and related subjects in the Netherlands.

AutoSupplyUK.com - Used Japanese import auto store.

B BDO - Austrian tax consultancy

Beotechnic - Company specializing in knowhow transfer

Bikeworld.com - Online retailer, sporting a new 100% Mason-powered site that was developed entirely in-house.

bizjournals.com - Publisher of 41 weekly business newspapers across the US.

BlackSpider - Managed services provider focused exclusively on the provision of e-mail security solutions.

Burma-Shave.org - All of the original Burma-Shave jingles, plus the Burma-Shave Daily mailing list.

C

cibera.de - cibera is an online library site which offers a central access point to interdisciplinary material concerning the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking area as well as the Caribbean.

Cars - iCarsInc.com Cars for sale. Buy and sell new and used cars online. Your next auto purchase starts right here. Find new, used, classics, sports cars, luxury cars, trucks, SUVï½s and even motorcycles for sale.

Not only do they use DLC on razor blades but they are sueing each other over the right to do it.

You may be "voting" even though you don't realize it. Many digital cable boxes now phone home with logs of what you watch, down to the second. If you have a TiVo, Nielsen knows not only what you watch, but when you watch it.

that hasn't stopped approximately 1/3 of all U.S. companies from employing email monitoring tools.
Why not link to the source for your source (login)? The ITFacts.biz story got it wrong anyway: "33% of US companies monitor employees' e-mail" is wrong--the direct quote was "Almost 33 percent of 140 North American businesses..." You and ITFacts were off wrt the number and the sample. Oh, and the Tribune article was merely a syndicated column, using data from a nearly year-old study. Not exactly news. Where did I find that out? Look, it's ITFacts.biz! Yep, TFA was a double post.

Let's continue because we are not done fixing your post:
43% of those companies employ staff to check outgoing emails.
Wrong. It's "more than 43%" of companies with over 20,000 employees (not 43% of monitoring companies), according to the study. The one-third figure expands the sample to include all companies.

It is also worth noting that the study in question was sponsored by ProofPoint, which in fact sells monitoring software. So you could say that Forrester had a financial interest in high-balling the figure (which it appears they did, with all this "almost 33%" business).

We have what I would call an emerging tech state. Even way out here in the Bush, we have DSL and wifi, and have had it for quite some time. We also have favorable government, and many other incentives. Heck, we get a check for about $1,000 just for filling out a form, and no state income taxes. Most places don't have a sales tax, either.

-cp-

President Bush to Liberate Alaska

No, Red Hat made a whole lot more than $4.1 million. Check the article which the parent linked to a little more closely. They made $4.1 million profit in the 3rd quarter of fiscal 2004 ($33.1 million in revenue), as compared to $214K profit in the 3rd quarter of fiscal 2003.

However, note that the date on the article is December 18, 2003, which is pretty out of date. More recent numbers are considerably higher.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/salespower/? jst=s_ep_lk

http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v3|325f|c|19c|%2 a|f;14707869;0-0;0;11022531;4252-336|280;9249835|9 267731|1;;~sscs=%3fhttp://dc.bizjournals.com/event .ng/Type=click&FlightID=8876&AdID=12748&TargetID=2 367&Segments=1,11,16,438,1861,2032,2519,2554,2622, 2665&Targets=42,61,396,1708,1871,2336,2367,2439,24 73&Values=25,30,46,50,60,72,82,91,100,110,150,155, 202,305,341,473,565,730,751,830,872,933,949,951,95 9,960,961,962,980,994,996,997,1009&RawValues=GEOMA JORMETRO%2C%2CDOMAINTYPE%2C25%2CST_VERT_TOPIC%2Cbu siness_services__legal_services&Redirect=http%3a%2 f%2fwww.hp.com/sbso/solutions/legal/ad/tablet1100. html%3Fjumpid%3Dex_r295_link/kimsmbvertical/2Qlega l/default

Local biotech company Ventria Bioscience has agreed to plant genetically modified rice at least 120 miles away from other rice fields in Missouri, defusing a showdown with brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., which had said it would not buy Missouri rice if biotech rice was grown in the state.

Sacramento-based Ventria, which faced opposition in California and has announced plans to move to Missouri, has a permit pending to grow genetically modified rice in southeast Missouri. The rice would produce two types of human proteins which help boost the immune system. Anheuser-Busch and Ventria agreed that Ventria would not plant genetically modified crops any closer than 120 miles from other Missouri rice fields. Anheuser-Busch plans to continue buying Missouri rice.

Missouri is the nation's sixth-largest rice producing state.

Ventria has a collaboration agreement with Northwest Missouri State in Maryville, Mo., to further develop the life sciences industry in the state.

The bill history for HB789 is interesting. Notably, it shows how quickly (and without a recorded vote so those of us who live in Texas can't even accuse our representatives of actually supporting this legislation) the bill passed.

Austin Wireless and Austin Wireless City both have coverage of what it means to Austin. The Save Muni Wireless group was put together in response to challenges like this; they include much better commentary on why HB789 is a bad idea than would be worth repeating here. If you really want to understand the issue, check some of these sites.

Even the High Tech Broadband Coalition (a group of telecom, hardware, and software companies) was against HB789.

Several local news stories:

• News8 Austin on "end of free Wi-Fi" - News8 Austin is the local Time Warner cable news channel.
• Austin Business Journal on "Free Wi-Fi Faces Challenges"

For those in Texas who want this law changed, it's probably a good time to call or write your state Senator today before this bill sails through committee and a floor non-vote.

Wikipedia's servers are often overloaded.

Of course, Yahoo just agreed to host Wikipedia, so this might be changing in the near future.

http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2 005/04/04/daily39.html. Hmm, apparently this support is based on servers in Asia. So maybe not.

Portland, Oregon has been slowly working on a plan like this for awhile. Unfortunately, the process has proven to be just as slow as a company like Qwest.
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2004/1 2/13/focus3.html

At least we have the Personal Telco project:
http://www.personaltelco.net/static/index.html

Others have commented to the point that their pricing makes it hard to compete, but I know nothing of Verizon pricing.

I do however know that the four big telcoms testified in front of Congress recently and their testimony might be of interest in this discussion. I watched it on C-SPAN and liked what I heard for the most part.

Their testimony basically told us that their mergers aren't going to harm competition. I'm sure a lot is bull, but please listen to the testimony first. It's interesting if you have a fetish for networks, redundancy and interconnectedness like I do. Plus loving gov't in action helps.

There were a lot of good questions and some pressure for honest answers. Listening is better than reading because you can get tone and inflection. Good thing too because the transcript isn't up yet, all you have is Real Audio.

here's a link on profits http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/01 /17/daily19.html

That done, profits don't always matter when calculating the value of a company. What usually matters is how much their assets are worth.