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Who cares what they could do? Should I condemn you because you could go and murder someone?

No, but you should condemn the government for having the ability to wiretap your calls, even if they don't exercise it.

There was no technical reason they couldn't have abused the system back then.

Yes...there was. When the Google marketing team used the AdWords network, they were technically unable to abuse the system. That's why they used the network in the first place—to ensure the trust of users and advertisers. You don't have to take my word for it; take Google's.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

My understanding is that the software MediaSentry uses is "proprietary", hence not peer reviewed, hence not reliable according to well settled legal principles. Which is why I have sought, and the RIAA has sought to stonewall, the MediaSentry agreements which, according to the RIAA's own admission, lay out the "parameters", "instructions", and "processes" of MediaSentry's "investigation". See motion papers here,here, here, here, here, and here.

I am not a molecular biologist, but this blog entry suggests that this may be vaporware.

No, the point is that it could, whereas three weeks ago—when the company used and blogged about using its ad network—it could not.

I would guess that the "ipod generation" (dumb name, BTW) isn't indifferent to space development, just NASA's extremely poor PR. The younger folks out there seem interested in space, human or robotic exploration, space tourism, astronomy, all sorts of stuff. It's NASA's marketing and the pitiful plan they've put forward that fall flat. People are excited about space, just not NASA space. Private spaceflight excites almost everyone I talk with, it's the ability to go there yourself that people are interested, not 4 government employees sometime in the next several decades. You should have seen all the excited young people at the X Prize Cup - and very little of that excitement is about the maybe-Moon missions.

Jon Goff has a good piece on Selenian Boondocks right now, called "VSE Apathy Woes". http://selenianboondocks.blogspot.com/

It's not "space" that youth are apathetic over, it's NASA.

Josh

The nice thing about GMail is that having your email on the server, and having it on your desktop, are not mutually exclusive. It's trivial, if you know what you're doing, to set up your GMail account so that it's always backed up to a local machine. There are even step by step instructions for doing it. You just set up a POP connection and suck down your entire mailfile, and then set up your local mailreader to download the new ones periodically.

Google rightly doesn't make any QoS promises, because it's giving you a free service. However, it's a pretty good bang for the (lack of) buck; and it doesn't preclude you from doing things to protect your data on your end. Until Google came along, I don't think most free webmail services let you have this level of desktop/web-service cooperation. (Though I think Yahoo's mail does POP access now. Not sure about Hotmail.)

Here's what Google has to say about it: clicky

Basically, they're competing with everyone else fairly. They're not favoring their own ads. And IMHO, if they did put their own ads on top, it would be fine. But then they should expect some people to choose overture for keywords that google grab for themselves.

That merely explains how to file a trademark complaint with Google.

My post does not claim it's trademark infringement, which you must know, since quoted it. The post says that Kodak could not create an ad containing "Picasa".

You've done this?

Yes.

What happens when you do it with "Kodak"?

That's exactly the point here. Google's tips are not subject to the same policies as AdWords ads, so irrespective of whether Kodak blocks ads from using its trademark, a tip could do it anyways. That wasn't the case when Google was using its own network.

How is that bad?

Where is the support for this claim?

The support for the claim is linked directly from the post, but here it is again. If you'd actually like to verify the claim yourself, go to AdWords right now, try to create a U.S. ad containing "Picasa", and read the resulting error message.

Oh, of course, Google would never think of doing something like having a cookie that tracks you across all sites using Adsense... ;^)

They are copying Google
What you want to work for Google?
Can you answer these questions? http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/2005/10/google- interview-questions-they-are.html Because Google Is hiring

I've dropped my electricity consumption by more than half. This chart on my blog shows my total KWHs consumed over five years.

Sure, I replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs when I moved in. So where is the savings? I optimized things like computers and then "insignificant, low-power" devices.

I'd love to see this journalist's KWHs per year over the past 5 years. I've love to see how many KWH he consumes a month. Perhaps given his waste, a savings of 100 KWH/month is insignificant.

Some people think that saving $200 a year in electricity is just about the same as saving nothing - because saving less than $20 per month is not worth thinking about. But for me, saving $200 a year is significant, and I don't mind if I have to do it in $17 increments over 12 months.

(note: I have a natural gas dryer, hot water heater, furnace, and oven)

Just wondering how many of those days will be clear. if you live in Manhattan you don't really see any stars

Denis The SQL Menace

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Mac OS X, duh!

People have more compassion for computer characters than for other people


Denis the SQL Menace
http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Nice...more ways to max out your credit cards


Denis The SQL Menace
http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

He was also aware in advance of the plan by Indonesia to massacre the East Timorese with U.S.-provided weaponry (~200,00 killed). Now, I'm not certain that we really needed to act militarily, but if the Indosesians wanted to kill a third East Timor's population I fail to see why we got to provide the weapons.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_co ntent&task=view&id=975&Itemid=135
http://redstateson.blogspot.com/2006/12/gaw-in-act ion.html

As for the point about Gnome, you're quoting someone from Novell who's fighting to avoid losing Suse developers to Ubuntu. I'll reserve judgement until I see some facts.

The link I posted above is to the blog of Josselin Mouette, one of the lead developers and maintainers of GNOME in Debian and in fact the Debian Developer responsible for getting GNOME 2.16.2 into testing. It's true that he is quoting a Suse developer, but if you scroll down to the comments you'll see that he himself asserts, "as one of the other GNOME maintainers, I can assure you this charge is true."

If Debian had no derivative distros geared towards end users, that would be a bad thing for Debian.

Debian itself is geared toward end users, just not the ones you have in mind. And honestly, why should Debian care about people who will use proprietary drivers over free ones just so they can "bring the bling"? That's not who Debian was meant for in the first place, and it's really none of our business to go around proselytizing to the masses. Debian is maintained by a community for that community and there's no reason why so much of the Debian Developers' time should be wasted trying to appease people who aren't interested in free software in the first place. I'm not saying Debian shouldn't care about making their distribution easier to maintain and install. I'm just saying that we should not give up the basic ideas and rights that the distro was founded on in the process, and we certainly shouldn't concern ourselves with the tinkerings of some company outside of Debian whose self-described "benevolent dictator for life" has admitted himself that Debian and Ubuntu have very different goals. I think it was said best by the Debian Developer, Gustavo Franco: "Debian is about us. The result of our work and feedback from our users, that are potential contributors in a much more powerful manner than alternative solutions." If Ubuntu wants to piggy-back off the labor of Debian to meet their own, very different goals then that's fine, but let's not forget what Debian is all about. This is a distribution for free software enthusiasts. The fact that there is another distribution out there that closely resembles Debian, but has entirely different goals and values does not help Debian to meet its own goals and values.

Here's the real link (blast FireFox for omitting the prefix in history lists!)

I've used RedHat distros back to RH6, and Fedora Core 3 since two years ago. All were on dual boot systems with Win98, Win2000, WinXp, as the case might be. I haven't updated to Core 5 (6?) because I have a customized laptop and it would be more trouble than it's worth. But that does mean I may not be being entirely fair to Fedora.

I've used Ubuntu Dapper and Edgy on a Dell Inspiron, and I am wildly impressed. It installs and just works out of the box, but if you want to play with stuff, it is *nix, and you can go as deep as you want. (The stumbling block there is that Ubuntu makes it complicated to act as root, but if you get tired of that, go to Ubuntu Community help: root-sudo on how to do things your way.) Ubuntu also has much more active and useful help forums and wikis, in my experience, that the things I've found on Fedora. That may be my fault, because I'm not searching for them right, but even so, that means Ubuntu's are easier to find. I tried to collect useful info and links on dual-boot install of Ubuntu, but there's heaps of help out there.

In order to get off the "foreign oil tit", as you put it, we'd have to do alternatives for lubricants, plastics, asphalt, jet fuel, diesel oil, heating oil, etc.

Your claim is refuted by the facts.

• US oil production is around 5 million bbl/day.
• Jet fuel, lubricants, and asphalt don't come to half that.
• Diesel and heating oil (combined under distillates) are somewhat more, but diesel consumption can be slashed by moving freight to rail, electrifying trucks (don't laugh, the tech is here) and just making them more efficient (WalMart is looking to double the economy of its fleet).

It would be quite difficult to run the US without imported oil, but it would be even harder to get all ground transport and electric generation off fossil fuels — but even that looks possible with current technology.

But I don't want an "intimate bond" with any advertisers! It looks like this whole setup is simply a form of rape.

Apple have i-talk and here it is http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-316873375 9916419298 from this site originally http://christopherdesantis.blogspot.com/ it's a coming buy and it's a combo i-pod/phone/pda with much gorgeousness! Pax681

Yes, Verizon controls your internet experience through their proxy. It is possible to disable this on some phones though and set up your own proxy. This has the desired effect of removing any meddling by Verizon & has the added benefit of not requiring you to pay extra for internet: http://vx8300.blogspot.com/2006/08/free-wap-intern et-on-vx8300.html

Just about every LG phone can be easily changed to use non-Verizon WAP.
http://vx8300.blogspot.com/2006/08/free-wap-intern et-on-vx8300.html

Yeah, after 15 years or so of bad luck, he finally got to realize his dream. His blog is here http://fuglesang.blogspot.com/

Let's go ahead and cover the initial problem here: The submission is total bullshit. Now that we've covered that... Do you even hear what you're saying?

Arctic levels are falling and the model predicting the globabl warming trend cannot explain why.

A.K.A. The models are wrong.

Another unexplained action is

More proof your models are wrong... And so on. I'm tired of listening to this. You people have been shouting about this shit for 30 years. Where the doom and destruction already?

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

It's the domino theory of island obliteration! As environmentalists always warned, once Lohachara falls, that's it for Egypt.

The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

Got that right, Geoffrey. I can't remember Lohachara ever disappearing previously.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

By quite a margin, as it happens. Lean doesn't say so, but Lohachara apparently vanished two decades ago. So much for Lean's scoop; the event took place back when Lean had hair, and several years before he emerged from a coma. Some locals aren't buying that global warming line, by the way:

Atanu Raha, director of Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, said the islands were getting eroded by oceanic currents, not by rising sea levels.

"Erosion and accretion are natural phenomena. Across the world islands submerge and new ones emerge. This is natural," Raha said.

Not according to Lean, who evidently believes all weather change is due to Meddling Humans. And that's all change, whether towards cold or heat. In 2004, Lean reported that "Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming". Two years later, he asked: "So where has all the snow gone?" There's no pleasing Geoffrey.

UPDATE. This nonsense was republished in the NZ Herald.

UPDATE II. Lean has previously been convicted of sins of omission and other crimes against journalism.

UPDATE III. Jackalope Pursuivant: "I've seen worse cases of journalistic malpractice, but not much worse."

Published in BDC Open Forum on November 21st, 2006
*LIGHTS* - *This Christmas, less can be more*

Every year, the Daily Camera does a story honoring the beautiful displays of holiday lights in our community.

In the 2006 Season of Light, I'd like to make a plea that the Camera seek out the most /imaginative/ displays, not the most extravagant and energy-intensive. In a year that's seen global warming established as a fact in most minds, as well as a threat to our kids and theirs, it seems to me wrong-headed to pile on the lights (unless solar powered!) or to praise anyone for doing so.

With a little imagination, and encouragement from community leaders (such as yourself), we can do more with less and be the better for it.


Here was my response to that ...

An Open Forum letter a week ago encouraged Boulder residents to be more imaginative (rather than just have more lights) with their Christmas Displays in order to reduce the impact on Global Warming. As someone who is often called Clark Griswold this time of the year, here's what I'm doing along those lines - may also provide ideas for others:

1. Less Lights - "only" 15,000 this year - down from 26,000 in 2005.
2. Xcel Wind Power - Will be the 3rd year I've been in this program.
3. Carbon Offset - even though I'm using "clean" energy, I made a contribution to CarbonFund.Org for twice last year's 2 Megawatt-Hours of electrical power consumption.
4. For the second year in a row, you can (really) view the display on the Internet via live webcams. I.e. you don't need to burn fossil fuels by driving to see it in person.
5. Just like 2005 (but not 2004), environmentally inclined Internet surfers can go to the website and turn the lights OFF. Be forewarned that people from around the world (119 countries so far) enjoy seeing 'em ON ... so you will have to "battle" for control.
6. Lights off after 10:00 - I use a master timer so the display is typically only active between 5:00-10:00MST nightly. The overseas web surfers would like 'em left on all night, but I have great neighbors and figure they deserve a rest from the blinking lights.

Being an open-minded Republic of Boulder resident, I respect that some people still may not feel that is enough. However, many folks don't realize that the cost to run the 26,000 Christmas Lights in 2005 was $5/day . i.e. one Double Peppermint Latte.

And for me, that.s plenty well worth it for the joy it brings to people and especially the kids when they see the display in person and/or on the web. "Imaginative" additions this year are giant Inflatable Elmo and Homer Simpson - D'OH! So while my Christmas Lights might be a bit tacky, they make an effort to be environmentally conscious; plus they are just a darn lotta fun. ;-)

Finally, the Internet site has garnered thousands of dollars in donations to charity to help find a cure for Celiac Disease - something my kids have. So you better believe that komar.org is lit up again for 2006!

Merry Christmas and HO-HO-HO,

As reported by the Camera's Kate Larsen a week earlier (Dec. 17), I have three Web cams (three more than last year) at my house watching my 26,000 Christmas lights. Needless to say, my 7-year-old and 4-year-old sons were excited to see if Santa would show up on these Web cams. And, not surprisingly, the Big Red Guy (and especially Rudolph) are quite visible stopping by our Lafayette house on Christmas Eve.

So while it would be (way!) out of place for me to weigh in on journalistic reporting as other letter writers have, I thought I would write to say that while Todd accurately reported that the physics of Santa are a challenge, the conclusion is wrong. Yes, sometimes, the paper doesn't get the story right ... and yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Santa does deliver presents on Christmas Eve to children around the world.

The magic/miracle is still alive, and I would suggest that Camera readers (and their kids) review the video at www.komar.org to judge for themselves.

And you'd better believe I'll be watching next year as Santa returns at Christmas.

Unfortunately closed minded groups and certain people have a bit of an agenda that isnt simply "find the truth".
The first one may be a clear given, the third one politically motivated but still within the ballpark, but the second one regarding Reuters shows the true colors of who the critics are(and how they slant).

That is, Pajamas Media (the group associated with most of the criticism) has too much of a country club, right-wing, and pro-Israel slant(and does not mind showing it in the case of LGF). It continues on from LGF to Michelle Malkin who seems to get the idea that she is to dish but not take criticism(see all her entries that haven't yet been banned and see the "comments disabled"). This continues on to HotAir, also known as A**ahpundit, where they take on the unofficial policy that is summarized as "We're not responsible for the comments, but existence isnt guaranteed". While these may be the flagrant offenders, others may take parts of that policy; the constant is that they declare themselves holier than the "MSM".

If there's anything to be learned out of that group, it's to seek information that is factual, and has enough proof to make multiple opposing sides agree on the course of events. Otherwise, I'd rather read them, and then take a more serious look at those who allow a more open dialogue to see what pans out. If they're just going to delete and demonize the opposition, they're just speaking to the choir. In cases such as Reuters, I'd rather hear the objection come from someone who at least doesn't rely on hiding behind the "private group" defense to justify their objections to criticism.

Some people do still listen for distant stations - try these links:

National Radio Club
International Radio Club of America
My AM DX blog

But you're right, the programming stinks. At sunset when I can't get the NPR station anymore, I only listen to AM at the top of the hour when someone might (or might not...) run the required station identification. Nothing else is worth listening to.

I did once receive two British stations here in the Nashville area, transmitted direct from the UK.

I see that the "parent" comment to which you were responding did inaccurately state the law, defining infringement too narrowly, so I see what you mean about misinformation. I stand corrected.

Actually, though, I think your response may have defined infringement a bit too broadly, as there are many possible fact patterns which simply haven't been played out in court yet.

As more and more litigants stand and fight, we'll see more and more interesting judicial precedents.

Today I learned of a pro se litigant in Alabama who defeated the RIAA's summary judgment motion.

I think we'll be seeing more and more of that, and more attorneys coming into the fray on behalf of the defendants.

He basically tells C-Span what Dear Leader didn't want published in the New York Times.

Apparently the CIA had okayed it, but Bu$hCo didn't want that sucker out.

This boils down to

1. the previous reports of Iran offering to negotiate a comprehensive deal for peace in the Middle East, and,
2. The dialog that Iran had with the USA right after 9-11 and the lead up to Afghanistan.

9:07 PM

He basically tells C-Span what Dear Leader didn't want published in the New York Times.

Apparently the CIA had okayed it, but Bu$hCo didn't want that sucker out.

This boils down to

1. the previous reports of Iran offering to negotiate a comprehensive deal for peace in the Middle East, and,
2. The dialog that Iran had with the USA right after 9-11 and the lead up to Afghanistan.

9:07 PM

VMware used the time to get the interface right. One of the developer's blogs notes they had an GTK+ version working 4 months ago but scrapped it to rewrite Fusion in Cocoa.

http://compfusion.blogspot.com/2006/12/good-day.ht ml

Dear Alter_Fritz:

Thanks for your suggestions.

I think Richard truncated my blog post where he did (compare this with this) because he didn't want Judge Levy to see that the litigation documents were being hosted by Pike & Fischer's Internet Law & Regulation, which is a very important legal publisher.

I think it was much more important, in my response, to call attention to the decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeals, affirming the District Court decision and agreeing with the report of Prof. Sips and Dr. Pouwelse, than to sink to Richard's level and waste the Magistrate's time with a debate over the merits of my humble blog.

Don't you?

Dear Alter_Fritz:

Thanks for your suggestions.

I think Richard truncated my blog post where he did (compare this with this) because he didn't want Judge Levy to see that the litigation documents were being hosted by Pike & Fischer's Internet Law & Regulation, which is a very important legal publisher.

I think it was much more important, in my response, to call attention to the decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeals, affirming the District Court decision and agreeing with the report of Prof. Sips and Dr. Pouwelse, than to sink to Richard's level and waste the Magistrate's time with a debate over the merits of my humble blog.

Don't you?

Microsoft is known to have hired some open-source people, maybe either because they wanted to silence them with dollars or because they needed good developers. I argue, however, that if they want good developers they ought first to get rid of their inefficient organisational structures. Top talent may not be very productive in an incompetent organisation, and the code coming out of a software company reflects not only the personal abilities of the developers but also the quality of management, organisational efficiency, level of communication, and work ethic of those higher up in the hierarchy of the company.

But why does it matter when that is the "accepted rumor mill term"? Also Apple owns the trademark for the name iPhone in several dozen foreign countries, the domain iPhone.org, and realistically, a cellphone with an MP3 player is very different from a VOIP 802.11 phone - I think Apple could get away with calling it an iPhone. They also have a public project called the "iTV" but Steve Jobs has said it won't be called that, that's just the codename for now. This is like Apple saying, without saying that the "iPhone project" is called the codename "iPhone" internally.

Plus, some credible evidence came out the other day about a storyboard / ad design for the keynote ...iPhone Ad design concept

Sorry LordPhantom, will try to do better next time.

I have a lot of pressure on me from a lot of directions.

One source is the RIAA, which has been scouring my internet writings and keeps trying to discredit me with the Judge. Just the other day, when I wrote to the Judge to submit the decision of the District Court of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and the independent expert report upon which it was partially based, they tried to "strike" my submission, and in support of their motion to "strike" sent the judge a page from my blog. It's all here.

Mainly, I've come to this decision: I'm under so much time pressure, I have to concentrate on what is the most important contribution I can make, and leave the rest to others. The most important contribution I can make is get accurate news and information out there. So I try to concentrate on that and let the rest of the world take care of the rest. Excellent commentators such as p2pnet.net, Ars Technica, TechDirt, Digital Music Web Log, Boing Boing, and others, can often make it more understandable. I got a laugh when Grant Robertson of Digital Music Weblog wrote that my article "How the RIAA Litigation Process Works" read like dry toast, and wrote his own version of it designed for non-lawyers.

I think it's more to do with not having the space for pets.

Check out this blog for some of the weird and wonderful watches out there. Some of them costing 200K or more. (yes, two hundred thousand) One of my favourites is the TAG Heuer V4, but I doubt I would be able to afford it.
Sigh.
A similar thing might well happen to analogue electronic engineers I suspect, with everything going digital these days. Why have a filter circuit composed of discrete components when you can program a DSP to do the same thing?
Or maybe not.

The format is <major build>.<minor build>.[ <version> [ .<patch> [.<level> [b [.<tree>]]]]]

• pre-alpha: A good deal of the base code runs. It's full of bugs.
• alpha: The base code is fairly stable. Let's get the rest of the modules working.
• beta: Code freeze. The software is stable. The modules work. Let's find the bugs.
• release candidate: Customers can peek, familiarise themselves and file bug reports.
• dogfood: We're rolling it out internally to find the rest of the bugs.
• release to manufacturing: We're done. Future bugs and enhancements to be done in patches.

So what's the difference between "Beta" and "release", when the Beta was a "public Beta release" Who gives a shit? A "public beta" is called a "Release Candidate".

I wrote about the problem of "beta" software a couple months ago.