Slashdot Mirror

These people are doing something I've never been forced to consider. The Myanmar regime has been a very rich, very powerful military ditatorship for some years and we have stood by in blissful ignorance of terrible things happening in a part of the world we dont live in and don't have to think about. Myanmar's biggest customer is China - It supplies most of China's oil and gas. China is Myanmar's biggest supplier of arms and luxuries. China is unlikely to intervene unless it looks like it could affect the Olympics.

They have made one of the most peaceful Buddhist countries in South East Asia into one of the most terrifying. You could try googling for the history. Here are some links to some stuff that has been got out before the internet was shutdown. Real bodies, real blood of unarmed victims. We do nothing!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/racoles/1437348927/in/photostream/
http://bp1.blogger.com/_5lDKnFpM4T4/RvlasEw2cGI/AAAAAAAAAPg/1YnNaWBd-wo/s1600-h/denied_-1.JPG
http://moemaka.blogspot.com/2007/09/blood-shed-in-ngwe-kyar-yan-monestery.html

The Burmese government webpage is still available with the oficial version http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=481 This is a small part of the $40 million wedding for the daughter of the dictator general for contrast. This wedding was one of the tipping points. I'd say it might have cost him that much to marry her off. At 4:00m+ it might be a bit long for /.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHRWToNhkCo ,BR>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22516505-601,00.html

This one is brutal, not up to the standard of CSI, but a real person whose weapon was prayer
http://soneseayar.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post_2316.html

All these corporations are happy to deal with a brutal military dictatorship. Recognise any, they aren't fussy about ethics

A World Away Travels Abercrombie & Kent Alcatel Andaman Club Andrew Brock Travel Aquatic Archaeological Tours Asean Explorer Asia Optical Audley Travel Baker Hughes Bales Worldwide Bamboo Travel Ben Line Agencies/ Egt Holdings BJ Services Britannic Garden Furniture Ltd CHC Helicopter Corporation Chevron China National Offshore Oil Corp China National Petroleum Corporation China Petro Chemical Corp (Sinopec) CAN Group Ltd Crown Relocations Danford Equities Corporation Daewoo International Corporation DBS Group Holdings Diethelm Keller/ STA Travel Dragon Travel EGAT EO Burton Essar Group Euro Teck Flatau Dick & Co Fodors/ Random house Gas Authority of India Geckos Adventures Geopetrol Ginnacle Import-Export Golden Aaron Hapag-Lloyd Hawke House Helicopters New Zealand Hunter Publishing/ Nelles Guides Hutchison Whampoa/ 3 Mobile/ Superdrug H2O Yachts Impact Publications Insight Guides Interra Resources Itera Group Ivanhoe Mines James Latham Jet Gold Corp Jetstar Keppel Corporation Kerry Logistics Group/ Kuok Group Kircodan Furniture Kogas Leeward Capital Corporation Lets Go/ Pan MacMillan Lister/Sun Wood Industries Lonely Planet Maersk Marubeni Mekong Travel Mel Flooring Mitsui Mitsui Osk Lines Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Morgan Timber Moss & Co Mountain Travel Sobek New Horizons Travels and Tours NHG Timber Nikko Hotels International/ Japan Airlines Nippon Oil Nobel Caledonia NYK Shipping OCBC Bank Old Burma Tour and Trading Co ONGC Videsh Orient Express Parker Kislingbury Peregrine Adventures Petronas Pettitts Pttep Purple Dragon Road to Mandalay Robbins Timber Ro

These people are doing something I've never been forced to consider. The Myanmar regime has been a very rich, very powerful military ditatorship for some years and we have stood by in blissful ignorance of terrible things happening in a part of the world we dont live in and don't have to think about. Myanmar's biggest customer is China - It supplies most of China's oil and gas. China is Myanmar's biggest supplier of arms and luxuries. China is unlikely to intervene unless it looks like it could affect the Olympics.

They have made one of the most peaceful Buddhist countries in South East Asia into one of the most terrifying. You could try googling for the history. Here are some links to some stuff that has been got out before the internet was shutdown. Real bodies, real blood of unarmed victims. We do nothing!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/racoles/1437348927/in/photostream/
http://bp1.blogger.com/_5lDKnFpM4T4/RvlasEw2cGI/AAAAAAAAAPg/1YnNaWBd-wo/s1600-h/denied_-1.JPG
http://moemaka.blogspot.com/2007/09/blood-shed-in-ngwe-kyar-yan-monestery.html

The Burmese government webpage is still available with the oficial version http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=481 This is a small part of the $40 million wedding for the daughter of the dictator general for contrast. This wedding was one of the tipping points. I'd say it might have cost him that much to marry her off. At 4:00m+ it might be a bit long for /.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHRWToNhkCo ,BR>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22516505-601,00.html

This one is brutal, not up to the standard of CSI, but a real person whose weapon was prayer
http://soneseayar.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post_2316.html

All these corporations are happy to deal with a brutal military dictatorship. Recognise any, they aren't fussy about ethics

A World Away Travels Abercrombie & Kent Alcatel Andaman Club Andrew Brock Travel Aquatic Archaeological Tours Asean Explorer Asia Optical Audley Travel Baker Hughes Bales Worldwide Bamboo Travel Ben Line Agencies/ Egt Holdings BJ Services Britannic Garden Furniture Ltd CHC Helicopter Corporation Chevron China National Offshore Oil Corp China National Petroleum Corporation China Petro Chemical Corp (Sinopec) CAN Group Ltd Crown Relocations Danford Equities Corporation Daewoo International Corporation DBS Group Holdings Diethelm Keller/ STA Travel Dragon Travel EGAT EO Burton Essar Group Euro Teck Flatau Dick & Co Fodors/ Random house Gas Authority of India Geckos Adventures Geopetrol Ginnacle Import-Export Golden Aaron Hapag-Lloyd Hawke House Helicopters New Zealand Hunter Publishing/ Nelles Guides Hutchison Whampoa/ 3 Mobile/ Superdrug H2O Yachts Impact Publications Insight Guides Interra Resources Itera Group Ivanhoe Mines James Latham Jet Gold Corp Jetstar Keppel Corporation Kerry Logistics Group/ Kuok Group Kircodan Furniture Kogas Leeward Capital Corporation Lets Go/ Pan MacMillan Lister/Sun Wood Industries Lonely Planet Maersk Marubeni Mekong Travel Mel Flooring Mitsui Mitsui Osk Lines Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Morgan Timber Moss & Co Mountain Travel Sobek New Horizons Travels and Tours NHG Timber Nikko Hotels International/ Japan Airlines Nippon Oil Nobel Caledonia NYK Shipping OCBC Bank Old Burma Tour and Trading Co ONGC Videsh Orient Express Parker Kislingbury Peregrine Adventures Petronas Pettitts Pttep Purple Dragon Road to Mandalay Robbins Timber Ro

because we haven't gone too much further in space, in 50 years... http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/09/sputniks-50th-anniversary-sad-that-we.html

Unfortunately, this paper completely misses the point. This paper is not so much about detecting a VM based rootkit so much as it is about detecting VMs in general. The authors argue is that if you detect a VM when you aren't expecting to, you've found a rootkit. Joanna's argument is that in a few years, everything is going to be using VM technology and you won't be able to tell a "good" VM from a "bad" one.

See virtualization-detection-vs-blue-pill and her presentation on the subject here. No one ever said that detecting a virtual machine is impossible. They are saying discriminating between malicious and non-malicious VMs is impossible.

The most recent reference to the comparative functions of the optic tract (including the retina) was in fact in a "Computer Vision" magazine article I read at the digital camera company in the Spring of 1990. If I get a chance to dig up more bio details from my old (1988) neurology textbook I'll try to post it.

The "eye" is an extremely sensitive optical receiver and processor, an array of much smaller detector cells. Rod cells respond to even single visible photons - realize that vision biochemistry is related to photosynthesis, which is more ancient and therefore "primitive", but still features close to 100% energy efficiency converting photonic power into stored chemistry. Retinal rod and cone cells are larger than the ~650nm wavelength of light they detect, but they each have multiple detectors. The arrays we're talking about have ample mechanisms to extract lots of info from incoming visible signals.

But also realize that we don't have to match human visual acuity for phased arrays to distinguish sufficiently separated transmitters. I bet if we looked at the parallax distance necessary for smallish arrays, say 16x16, of the cheapest detectors, we could find that local networks, say within the 100m that a WiFi AP typically covers, could distinguish unique signals among many 802.11b transmitters on the same frequency for a lot less than $2500 (256 * $10). We're looking for something better than "planaria vision", but not much better. That should be obtainable, and probably a more productive route than just upping the power and frequency to centralized, "one eyed" WiMAX. Since WiMAX already uses MIMO, getting full service from WiMAX with phased arrays could finally mean that "the air" is no longer a narrower, single channel with which wires and fibers easily compete in bandwidth delivery.

arrr, well I recently bought the 800. The word on the street is that the folks at Nokia recognize they made a mistake by killing 770 support so fast.

That doesn't make me secure with the n800, as it has some clear architectural limitations that I'm hoping the next generation fixes. And when it does, it ain't gonna be backported.

BTW, the Nokia suits called 770s owners übergeeks. Just thought you'd like to know.

Heck, I look at the n800 and I see "enough things that don't work."

Google already thought of something better

It's even implemented in WordPress already, just turn it on in the options

I'm working on the phenomenology of vision in my MFA thesis, and it occurs to me that no one is being fooled. You and the robots, are correctly perceiving the color balance caused by color of light of the form. And while those two colors may be the same in a 2-d image. In the real world if you saw the one color in red-orange light and the same color in blue light, they would in fact be very different colors. I auto-white-balanced each section to reveal how the colors would look with out being in a tinted light. And Voila, it is exactly as you probably (correctly) perceived them, green & orange. Cheers.

It's been a while, so maybe they have better resources now. I'd be happy if they did.

Has anyone ever looked into how google-analytics.com (formerly Urchin) works? This blogger http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/11/prevent-google-analytics-from-tracking.html gives a bit of info--and it does not appear to comply with the Google "do no evil" mantra.

Back in May Google launched on online security blog as part of a broader effort to detect malware sites, presumably to exclude them from the SERP results. They're clearly behind the curve. But this post offers an overview of Google's efforts and ambitions in this area.

Back in May Google launched on online security blog as part of a broader effort to detect malware sites, presumably to exclude them from the SERP results. They're clearly behind the curve. But this post offers an overview of Google's efforts and ambitions in this area.

can be found here ;-)

Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank.

At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names.

Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to Countrywide's Laguna Niguel office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000, which he then wired to an account at Bank of America.

"It's because of the fear of the bankruptcy," said Ashmore, president of Irvine's Impac Mortgage Holdings, which escaped bankruptcy itself recently by shutting down virtually all its lending and laying off hundreds of employees.

"It's got my wife totally freaked out," he said. "I just don't want to deal with it. I don't care about losing 90 days' interest, I don't care if it's FDIC-insured -- I just want it out."

In a statement, the bank said: "It is very important to remember that Countrywide Bank is well capitalized, with FDIC-insured deposits, and is one of the largest banks in the United States, with assets over $107 billion."

The bank added that it had significant access to outside capital and was still highly rated by debt-rating firms.

-L.A. Times, courtesy Mad Dash for Cash

[I enjoy] a good OSS flamewar [but] Give me something that works for 95% of the whole group and I'll happily support the remaining 5% rather than risk 100% of my user base's productivity on something that may collapse from internal quibbling in a few months.

The problem with closed source is that your 5% is just out of luck. You would be very lucky to have that 95% satisfaction without three year fork lift "upgrades" that will screw over your old work anyway.

Free software flame wars are downright civil next to what goes on in chair throwing, non free fiefdoms. Check out this nasty spat over Vista, aka "the biggest development failure ever", and something that's about to collapse after 9 months of failure. Want to risk your productivity on ME2? I don't think so, but the next version of Windoze is going to be more of the same.

As hardware prices fall below OS cost, it will be possible for Microsoft to 'bundle' the hardware with the OS. Perhaps the next Windows family will be 'Windows Laptop', 'Windows Home Computer', 'Windows Server', each coming with the hardware pre-installed. The current situation only appears to be something of a conundrum because we are accustomed to thinking that the hardware should be the most expensive part.

Because hardware is that, hardware, it costs a lot to copy. Software, even OSes like Windows, are easily and cheaply reproduced. Whether 1000 or 1,000,000 copies of Windows are made, the cost is about the same. This does not apply to hardware though. Actually as more hardware is made it becomes more expensive. Look at what's happened in the market for silicon, because both chip fabs and pv makers use it the price of silicon has gone up, since 2004 the price of silicon has doubled.

I make no claim to any specialized knowledge of economics. I do have a question though. The following tit for tat got me thinking: "What does matter is that we're seeing American financial institutions start to fail, due to the poor health of the American economy." Really? Inflation is low, Unemployment is low, GDP growth is ok. I don't really see how you can define "poor health". Didn't the growth of the housing market, and associated industries play an enormous part in increasing employment(1) as well as raising the GDP (2) in the recent past (1). Wouldn't a crash in the real estate industry have much more far reaching consequences on at least 2 of the 3 indicators that you are pointing to as signs of underlying economic health? I will defer to any expert opinion on this question, it is merely one I couldn't resolve on my own. -iFeden (1) Industry Employment Data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics The jump in employment in the housing-related series over the last 13 years is a good measure of the impact of the housing bubble. While overall employment increased by less than 22 percent from the 1993 to 2006, employment in the construction of residential buildings increased by almost 70 percent. Employment in real estate agencies increased by almost 30 percent over this period. Employment in residential specialty trade contractors increased by almost 28 percent in just the years from 2001 to 2006. When the bubble deflates, employment levels in these sectors will fall back in line with their historic patterns, as construction and sales levels move to more normal levels. If employment in housing-related sectors were to fall back to levels consistent with their share of their labor force in the mid-1990s, it would lead a loss of close to 1 million jobs. If the construction sector temporarily falls below its normal level of activity as inventories of unsold homes adjust to normal levels, the job loss would be even greater. -From http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/11/housing-industry-employment.html (2) Private Goods and Private Services Sectors Accelerated in 2006 Advance Estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Industry Newly available data on the industry distribution of real GDP growth show that the private services-producing sector accelerated to 4.1 percent in 2006, up from 3.7 percent in 2005, and that the private goods-producing sector accelerated to 2.5 percent, up from 2.1 percent in 2005. Real growth in government slowed slightly to 0.6 percent, down from 0.7 percent in 2005. The private services sector's acceleration reflected more rapid growth in "finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing" that offset slower growth in retail trade, information, and "professional and business services." Private goods-sector growth accelerated due to more rapid growth in durable-goods manufacturing and "agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting" and smaller decreases in mining and nondurable-goods manufacturing. Real growth in manufacturing accelerated to 3.3 percent in 2006 after increasing 2.2 percent in 2005. This acceleration largely reflected stronger real growth in durable-goods manufacturing of 6.7 percent in 2006, up from 4.9 percent in the previous year. In 2006, durable-goods manufacturing accounted for 6.9 percent of the economy, but accounted for 13.6 percent of real GDP growth. -From http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/industry/gdpindustry/gdpindnewsrelease.htm

You may as well read the Paris-Site blog yourself.

Here's a better link that includes links to the actual court documents: http://www.citmedialaw.org/texas-judge-orders-discovery-anonymous-bloggers-identity

The blog is here: http://the-paris-site.blogspot.com/

I don't see how the blogger is liable for anything HIPAA related. The complaint references criminal law and Essent's own responsibility to keep patients' information private, nothing relevant to a blogger or the independent actions of Essent's employees. E.g., Essent could fire the employees under the confidentiality agreement, but they reference no matter of law that says the employees are otherwise liable. There may be some other documents or law not mentioned by the complaint, but I don't see how the blogger is a party to such matters, especially since he/she likely never signed the employees' confidentiality agreements. Also, I don't see how Essent has standing to prosecute federal HIPAA violation in state civil court.

I don't know why the blogger and the other Does are joined in a lawsuit as well. Any HIPAA violation between Essent and employees would be a distinct event from the publishing of any such information on the blog. As in the RIAA lawsuits, it seems this would be a valid way to appeal the imminent order from the judge. (Although remember this is state district court and the RIAA lawsuits are federal district court.) Also note that the blogger's lawyer has come forward (see lawyer's Aug letter, although the judge's Sept order says he has not), so the case can continue on it's merits without the need to disclose the blogger's identity.

I also don't see any specific allegations of defamation. Defamation is hard to prove, and I don't see anything in the complaint that couldn't be interpreted as opinion by a reasonable person, or is simply disclosing internal happenings in the hospital, which would be known to a lot of the hospital's employees and patients. If a hospital employee relates false information on the blog or to the blogger, then that employee would be the defamer, and not the blogger. E.g., who would reasonably assume that an anonymous blogger would be an authority on the inner workings of Essent, and use that one blogger's opinion to judge Essent? Of course, it's possible the blogger is an employee. It's also possible that the blogger and all other Does are patients.

Finally, I was amused by a couple of things in the complaint. First, to see an employer refer to the employees' "breaches of the employees' duty of loyalty". What?!? Employers and employees have a legal obligation of loyalty? I sure haven't seen many employers show loyalty to their employees, but then that's another thread... Second, the complaint says the blog is publicly available (that's how the hospital's business would supposedly be harmed), and that "...the blog has as it's sole purpose to conduct a one-sided attack and disparagement of the Hospital, PRMC, and their employees and doctors, and is in no manner intended to be an open and fair discussion of issues." OK, so that's why you filed a lawsuit instead of posting to the publicly available blog your open and fair rebuttal of the issues raised?!?!

I don't know the blogger, the other Does, or Essent, and IANAL, so I can only hope the truth of this matter comes out in court.

Regards,
Art

http://www.the-paris-site.blogspot.com/

I've read TFA, and went beyond that to find the blog (the paris site blogspot and google a little on Essent Healthcare.

I did not see anything suggesting a violation of HIPAA on the web site (my background includes several years as the Information Security Officer for Nursing Service at a largish hospital: I'm reasonably familiar with HIPAA requirements). There is nothing illegal about a third party discussing the particulars of someone's treatment at a hospital, even when that includes information that could allow someone to identify the patient. It is illegal for a hospital or healthcare professional to release identifying information, even unintentionally, but if that occurred here, it would have occurred before the blog posted about it.

In other words, if there was such a violation, it would have involved the hospital employee who leaked the data to the blogger, not the blogger or the blog. HIPAA governs healthcare providers and the policies and procedures they use: its scope does not extend to information that has gotten out into the wild.

If the hospital had adequate information security and HR policies in place, the alleged leak could not have occurred without triggering flags that would identify the staff person who leaked the information. Essent's pursuit of this blogger on the basis of HIPAA violations is a tacit admission that they are negligent— not exercising due diligence— regarding confidential information. Maybe they need to spend more money on paper shredders, enforce policies about logging out of the system when leaving a workstation unattended, disallow corporate officer access to confidential patient files, and so forth.

A noteworthy tidbit is that Essent Healthcare is a small part of the Healthtrust Purchasing Group, which seems to be buying up hospitals and clinics all over the country for the purpose of making profits. This is capitalism at its finest, but it does mean that improving patient care is no longer the highest concern of those running the show.

http://netbankcustomer.blogspot.com/

I know you're joking, but you can help right here.

That's for the Marie Lindor case, handled by NYCL. I believe she's the home health aide who hasn't ever used a computer, but I can't keep all the defendants straight any more so I may be wrong.

I don't know that it'll ever make YouTube, but NYCL has made it to radio at least (NPR) and if things go on, I wouldn't be surprised for him to get on TV eventually.

So build an antenna. That's what I did, and I get the Fred eZone from 10 miles away.

[P]laintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act. On the other hand, Lindor cites to case law and to law review articles suggesting that, in a proper case, a court may extend its current due process jurisprudence prohibiting grossly excessive punitive jury awards to prohibit the award of statutory damages mandated under the Copyright Act if they are grossly in excess of the actual damages suffered.....Furthermore, Lindor provides a sworn affidavit asserting that plaintiffs' actual damages are 70 cents per recording and that plaintiffs seek statutory damages under the Copyright Act that are 1,071 times the actual damages suffered. Aff. of Morlan Ty Rogers, ("Rogers Aff.", [pars.]5, 6. See also Aff. of Aram Sinnreich, ("Sinnreich Aff."), [par.] 2, 3 (attesting that popular music sound recording downloads and consumer license to use same are lawfully obtainable to the public at 99 cents per song, and of that 99 cents, roughly 70 cents per song is paid by the retailer to the record label). As FRCP Rule 12(b)(6) requires that this figure be taken as true for purposes of the motion, Lindor has alleged a factual basis supporting her affirmative defense."

By the way, this is Cary Sherman, who is on the plaintiffs' so called witness list. Watch his performances on CNN and CBS and tell me what kind of witness you think he'd make.

That was my initial reaction, but then I poked around on the project wiki and noticed that they were specifically trying to get GPLv2 licensed drivers. Then I remembered that Greg K-H was one of the developers who tried to fuck up the release of GPLv3 and the bits all clicked into place. This is Novell trying to ensure that they have a supply of GPLv2 drivers available so that they can continue their filthy pact with Microsoft which will be finished if most people release their work as GPLv3.

I have found around 12000 such number pairs were this bug occurs. Here is a link to my blog where I have posted a few thousand. http://pranjan.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-found-12000-recurrence-of-excel-2007.html Here is the ruby code to get a list of these numbers(however seems my pattern si not completely correct as only 12000 of the 72000 of these number pairs are actually reproducing the bug) http://pranjan.blogspot.com/2007/09/ruby-code-for-unearthing-vista.html

I have found around 12000 such number pairs were this bug occurs. Here is a link to my blog where I have posted a few thousand. http://pranjan.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-found-12000-recurrence-of-excel-2007.html Here is the ruby code to get a list of these numbers(however seems my pattern si not completely correct as only 12000 of the 72000 of these number pairs are actually reproducing the bug) http://pranjan.blogspot.com/2007/09/ruby-code-for-unearthing-vista.html

Man that is around 391K per agent. I take it there is a pork project or two in there, but really that is a lot of dough, especially for cyber-crime where you don't necessarily need much besides servers/connectivity, experts, and a lot of time. I would love to see the break-down of costs. I have a feeling they aren't looking for the most economical route to catch cyber criminals. http://parthian-shot.blogspot.com/

The US already has 24 GW of pump storage: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/07/closets.html and with the electrification of transportation, coming up with a mere 3 GW for Texas by 2014 should not be a big problem at all: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.html. Nuclear power takes such a long time to come on line, and requires such a long (hundred year) planning horizon that it just does not make a lot of sense in a rapidly changing market where other energy sources are substantially less expensive already.

The US already has 24 GW of pump storage: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/07/closets.html and with the electrification of transportation, coming up with a mere 3 GW for Texas by 2014 should not be a big problem at all: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.html. Nuclear power takes such a long time to come on line, and requires such a long (hundred year) planning horizon that it just does not make a lot of sense in a rapidly changing market where other energy sources are substantially less expensive already.

In fact, this is not the case. This development has been encouraged by government through loan guarantees that are not available to other power providers. Even with that the cost, likely lowballed at $2.20/Watt is high compared to Texas wind power (about $1.30/Watt). Wind is curently the least expensive source of power in Texas and it is growing very rapidly because of this. There is a definite risk that the new reactors won't be able to sell their power and we will be stuck with the bill when they default on their construction loans. Eliminate the loan guarantees, repeal Price-Anderson and then see if private capital is available to do this kind of thing. From the numbers, it does not look like it makes any kind of economic sense.
--
Rent solar power for your home and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html

Good old electric can be expensive as well... if your government is incompetent.
The Netherlands spent 4.7 Billion euro on a 100 mile track.
That is 9000 euro per foot.

http://ps3computing.blogspot.com/2007/08/dichtgeslibd.html

I have run across several good documentary DVDs and video links that are critical of the Federal Reserve. I am not an expert and I have not yet heard from experts on both sides of the issue, so I have not drawn any final conclusions on the issue. What I have heard so far is quite thought provoking and gives me great concern for our financial future. In general I am slightly uncomfortable with conspiracy theories, so I am not sure what to believe. But, in my non-expert opinion, what they say about history and economics makes sense and is probably actually true.

Here are the books, DVDs and video links on the subject that I have run across so far:

• The Money Masters DVD
• Money as Debt DVD
• Money as Debt video link
• The Money Masters DVD
• The Federal Reserve, a discourse by G. Edward Griffin

Also closely related, but written back in 1899 well before the creation of the Federal Reserve is this book:

The Coming Battle

I hope to eventually find a more balanced, unbiased, two sided discussion of the subject by experts on both sides. So far I have only heard from the conspiracy theorists, because the mainstream press has never even mentioned the subject. I try to keep my mind open to what both sides might have to say about the subject. I would also like to hear what an actual economist has to say. Any good links for an opposing view?

By the way, I have not yet actually finished looking at all those DVDs and books yet, but the ones that I have seen were quite interesting. How do I decide what to believe and what not to believe with all this conspiracy stuff, especially when the mainstream press refuses to give an opposing viewpoint or even touch the subject.

(though, even per hour worked, Americans are more productive, so that further raises the value of the labor to the company).

This isn't true when corrected for GDP (source). Of course, you can could try to argue that increased GDP is an effect of increasing hours worked, but this would clearly be only one of a number of factors (natural resources available to nation, location, political system, etc.).

And, of course, unemployment in America is much lower than in Europe (for August, it was 4.6% in the US vs 9% in, e.g, Germany). If you have twice as many people looking for jobs, well, the employer can offer lower pay and someone will be glad to be earning more than zero.

This is only true for certain age groups - the very young, and the very old; in the US people begin work longer because they either don't have access to socialised education, or due to other social pressures (source; "25-55 age group, there is virtually no difference; the employment rates are 86 and 88 percent for the EU-15 and the US respectively").

And from the same source: "The most important feature of the comparison is neither the growth nor the unemployment record of the US and the EU. It is, rather, that US growth, unlike that in the EU, is funded by a dangerously high mountain of foreign debt." If you're borrowing massive amounts of money, it's easier to employ more people.

(I hope you're the kind of slashdotter who reads replies to his comments, so that you answer to this one.)

There are a lot of things that don't make sense in most interpretations of quantum mechanics. This is what I've read that does make some sense of it all. Does that interpretation not rule out the whole idea of MWI and spooky-action-at-a-distance? (I love that word. Does sum up most I've read on QM at all... sounds like so much medieval alchemy to me.)

Here's an ars technica analysis of the three disputed Verizon patents.

This blog references 2 Sprint patents 6,373,930 and 6,731,735 but I can't seem to find any references listing the patents in the Sprint lawsuit.

I'm sure it's possible to restore a bricked iphone, but you'd probably have to use the JTAG that was used in the initial unlock hack, which isn't feasible for the average person to do themselves.

It amazes me that I still see signs of this thinking. Web pages and services are tailored to small screens and people expect that to create the mobile internet. It won't. There is only one internet, and if your device cannot access it, you're out of luck. There is only one internet.

You could at least start practicing on the Enemy Territory:Quake Wars demo on Wine in prep for the full Linux version when it comes out.

what's the guarantee that crackers weren't using the vulnerabilities earlier than they were found. I think, the normal user is always vulnerable because the bad guys might, just might have figured the things out earlier and have been using them.

"Look at the electric company (assuming it's not forced by government intervention to let competitors use its power lines)."

Nope, not where I am from. Where I am from, the electric company is a government owned monopoly. Supposedly with laws that make you buy from them and prevent you from generating your own where they have lines by your property. Plus, if they don't have lines near your property, you have to pay to have the poles and lines run if you do happen to want to buy from them.

Now, why would natural monopolies need laws to keep competition at bay?

all the best,

drew

http://rukiddinmez.blogspot.com/
R U Kiddin Me?!?!?!

Here is Steve Jobs' reply to Woz's interview -

Oh wait....

Sorry you didn't tell me from the outset that you were referring to Canada. Canada is a common law country, except for Quebec. Canada's law on file sharing is, as is that of the United States, unclear. It will probably take some good old fashioned common law judicial decisionmaking to clarify what the law is. But for now Canada is safer from big music's cruel lawsuits, because an appellate court in Canada correctly held in BMG v. Doe that the CRIA's evidence was too flimsy to warrant permitting the ISP's to turn over confidential subscriber information. So the lawsuits haven't been taking place in Canada, and I hope it stays that way.

If your multicore CPU or concurrent programming language or operating system does not support fine-grain, instruction-level parallelism in a MIMD (multiple instruction, multiple data) environment, it is crap. Sorry.

The Age of Crappy Concurrency

FirstSolar uses CdTe http://www.firstsolar.com/environment_cdte.php and the durability of the panels remains an issue, but one they are addressing. Their aim is to demonstrate 20 year performance above 80% of the initial efficiency. The trick is to do this in less time than 20 years and they are getting help from NREL to pull this off. Their cost of production is $1.19/Watt and headed down.
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Rent solar power for your home and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html