Slashdot Mirror

This doesn't fully explain the situation (as noted by the linked article), but it does at least provide a bit more info:

http://chisflorinel.blogspot.com/2006/09/mysql-fro nt-discontinued.html

...And transporting radioactive waste to an from a processing facility is extremely risky...

My second issue has to do with the low cost of switching on the internet. As a consumer it costs me nothing to type a different search engine into the browser. Likewise, I can switch from Friendster to Facebook to LinkedIn with not cost to me. I can even visit all of them in turn if I want. I believe this leads to some sites, like social networking sites and YouTube having very low consumer loyalty. These places are like the "hot" club. The in-crowd discovers the club. The b-list follows them there. Soon everyone is there so it is no longer cool and it is replaced by another. What is the stickiness aspect of YouTube -- what cost is there to switching?

To me the purchase is just confusing. However, I do agree with the tone of the article. If someone offers you a billion dollars you say thank you and take the money. There just aren't enough Ferraris in the world....

Jon

It looks like this may be the future. After they cut down on places to post mail won't they eventually cut down on how often they deliver it?

Jon

I am the author of the blog post that the article references. My blog is basically limited to reporting on factual legal events. The only known public fact is that the RIAA withdrew its case in the face of Mr. Wilke's motion for summary judgment. What more can I do than give you the known facts?

I could speculate but that is not the style of my blog, and it is not its function. Its function is to give hard information about what is going on in the litigation wars with the RIAA. Also it provides resources to help people who are defending themselves and to lawyers who are defending clients.

You are right that the known facts raise more questions than they answer. The stipulation of dismissal that was filed is clearly a form document and does not tell the whole story. What really happened? Did Mr. Wilke pay the RIAA anything? Did the RIAA have to pay Mr. Wilke anything? Who knows? There is probably a confidential settlement agreement that neither side is permitted to talk about.

I specifically asked Mr. Wilke's lawyer point blank whether any money had changed hands.

In response she gave me what was obviously a scripted, agreed response "Plaintiffs, the RIAA, and SBC worked cooperatively and amicably to resolve this dispute."

I'm sorry you're frustrated but I don't think your criticism of my article is fair. It is a "real article". I am not "just some web-blogger who heard something from a torrent site". I got the information directly from Mr. Wilke's attorney and from the filed court documents. (PS I don't even know what a torrent site is).

The reference to Slashdot for discussion is that sometimes, if there is a lot of discussion going on about my post on the internet, I sometimes add links to some of the more interesting discussions for people who want to pursue "commentary and discussion".

No, MS only bought "piece of mind". The SCOSource license was a hilarious bit of salesmanship: buy this just in case something we're suing about turns out to have evidence backing it up.

Here's a similar license:
http://btetc.blogspot.com/2006/07/mattsource.html

BTW I think MS might deserve a refund, having not got the "piece of mind" they were buying. That is to say: this maneuver backfired big time; IBM's response has laid waste to years worth of FUD, and Linux has 5 times the mindshare it used to.

http://myoldkyhome.blogspot.com/2006/09/microsoft- zune-product-demo-review.html IN the link above is a blog that reviews Zune and it has a photo with the program that works with it.

some thoughts about him

I've been building a list of sources for non-RIAA music which I call "Liberated Music". If you have any good ideas for additions to it, would appreciate your passing them along. Thanks.

The only "notice" the "John Does" get is a vague letter from their ISP, along with copies of an ex parte discovery order and a subpoena, indicating that an order has already been granted against them: i.e., instead of receiving notice that the RIAA is applying for an order, they instead are notified that they have already lost the motion, without ever even having known of its existence.

They are not given copies of (i) the summons and complaint, (ii) the papers upon which the Court granted the ex parte discovery order, or (iii) the court rules needed to defend themselves. Most recipients of this "notice" do not even realize that it means that there is a lawsuit against them. None of the recipients of the "notice" have any idea what they are being sued for, or what basis the Court had for granting the ex parte discovery order and for allowing the RIAA to obtain a subpoena.

You might consider waiting for the Core 2 Quad. It seems that a blowtorch could hardly cause that chip to overheat

http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/

Then you just need a couple fans to cool your hard drives

Um, Google bought Writely. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/writely-so. html

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/
It's an insider blog by an anonymous MS employee. It draws a lot of comments from other MS employees (and trolls from Slashdot) and provides a unique window into the company.

Maybe I'm naive, but my impression from the blog is that things seem pretty Machiavellian in MS. For instance, in performance reviews, you are pooled with your co-workers and ranked against each other. This determines compensation levels, future advancement opportunities, etc. Even meeting your personal goals for the year may not help you escape a poor review.

Corporate culture can be infuriating and heartbreaking. Read Mini-Microsoft carefully for context, then get more information from people who work there.

Nobody likes to see the rich get richer. We all want the underdog to userp! Now, MS is smaller than Google. So Google's "Not Evil" slogan is tarnishing... http://wimax-access.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-googl e-will-fail.html has a funny article about just that

It's lovely that you have it all figured out and seem to know every consequence of a warming event.... not.
Desertification comes to mind...
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/

The dismissal of this many Arabic-speaking military linguists *has* had an enormous impact on the military's ability to function efficiently in the Middle Eastern theatre. Believe it or not, the Army is now recruiting linguists on Craigslist with the following ad:

Your primary responsibility will be to interpret Middle-Eastern languages into English to help with rebuilding efforts. On a day-to-day basis, you might:

* Provide records of foreign language communications * Translate, transcribe or produce summaries of foreign language materials into English or target languages * Identify the language spoken in an assigned geographic area * Scan written foreign language material for key words and indicators * Translate written and interpret spoken foreign language material to and from English, while making sure to preserve the original meaning * Translate and transcribe Middle-Eastern language TV and radio broadcasts into English * Translate foreign books and articles describing foreign equipment and construction techniques

LANGUAGES

The Army Translator Aide Program specializes in the following languages:

Arabic

* Algerian * Egyptian * Gulf-Iraqi * Jordanian * Lebanese * Libyan * Maghrebi * Modern Standard * Moroccan * Syrian * Sudanese * Tunisian * Yemeni

Other

* Pushtu-Afghan * Pushtu/Pashto/Pachto * Kurdish * Kurdish-Behdini (Kurmanji) * Kurdish-Sorani * Persian-Afghan (Dari) * Persian-Iranian (Farsi)

I have also seen a classified ad from the Washington Post from the U.S. military, seeking Arabic linguists (among others) for training and employment. Clearly, discharging all those Arabic-speaking members of the military because of their sexual orientation was foolish, to say the least.

As for the argument that these soldiers should just "clam up" and "not tell the military" they are gay, many LGBQ people would love to serve their country this way. However, you should go to the previously mentioned Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network website at http://www.sldn.org/ to read about the everyday harassment, "witch hunts," and physical and emotional violence inflicted upon gay people by the military in violation of its own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rules. I think you would be extremely surprised to find out how many servicemen have been killed in the past five years by members of their own divisions/units; the Armed Forced do not exactly issue press releases every time something like this happens. The bottom line is that the vast majority of LGBQ soldiers are forced out against their will, as they try to be quiet and inconspicuous and to serve their country.

The dismissal of this many Arabic-speaking military linguists *has* had an enormous impact on the military's ability to function efficiently in the Middle Eastern theatre. Believe it or not, the Army is now recruiting linguists on Craigslist with the following ad:

Your primary responsibility will be to interpret Middle-Eastern languages into English to help with rebuilding efforts. On a day-to-day basis, you might:

* Provide records of foreign language communications * Translate, transcribe or produce summaries of foreign language materials into English or target languages * Identify the language spoken in an assigned geographic area * Scan written foreign language material for key words and indicators * Translate written and interpret spoken foreign language material to and from English, while making sure to preserve the original meaning * Translate and transcribe Middle-Eastern language TV and radio broadcasts into English * Translate foreign books and articles describing foreign equipment and construction techniques

LANGUAGES

The Army Translator Aide Program specializes in the following languages:

Arabic

* Algerian * Egyptian * Gulf-Iraqi * Jordanian * Lebanese * Libyan * Maghrebi * Modern Standard * Moroccan * Syrian * Sudanese * Tunisian * Yemeni

Other

* Pushtu-Afghan * Pushtu/Pashto/Pachto * Kurdish * Kurdish-Behdini (Kurmanji) * Kurdish-Sorani * Persian-Afghan (Dari) * Persian-Iranian (Farsi)

I have also seen a classified ad from the Washington Post from the U.S. military, seeking Arabic linguists (among others) for training and employment. Clearly, discharging all those Arabic-speaking members of the military because of their sexual orientation was foolish, to say the least.

As for the argument that these soldiers should just "clam up" and "not tell the military" they are gay, many LGBQ people would love to serve their country this way. However, you should go to the previously mentioned Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network website at http://www.sldn.org/ to read about the everyday harassment, "witch hunts," and physical and emotional violence inflicted upon gay people by the military in violation of its own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rules. I think you would be extremely surprised to find out how many servicemen have been killed in the past five years by members of their own divisions/units; the Armed Forced do not exactly issue press releases every time something like this happens. The bottom line is that the vast majority of LGBQ soldiers are forced out against their will, as they try to be quiet and inconspicuous and to serve their country.

backing up your system with bash, tar and netcat

>Just like the leftists trivialize human rights violations and terrorism because to do otherwise wouldn't support their socialist views.

Remind me, which political party is attempting to rewrite the Geneva conventions to legitimise torture?

especially when one considers that the right of redress held by U.S. citizens is not extended to E.U. citizens.

Oh well, in that case there's no problem, since the Republicans are taking that right away from US Citizens. Now all the DoD has to do is declare you an enemy combatant and there is no proof, no trial, no appeals, and no redress.

It's lovely that you have it all figured out and seem to know every consequence of a warming event.... not.

Desertification comes to mind...
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/

Also while it may be fun to have laughs at the expense of the "spotted owl lovers" the plunge in biodiversity which has already started won't seem so funny when you are inhaling the neurotoxic fumes of the algeas that take over when the current biosphere can no longer sustain itself.

Jokes aside, it does bring up an interesting question: is Slashdot a blog? I've heard some people refer to it as a blog. I mean, it's not a blog like my blog but do all blogs have to look like that? What defines a blog? Wikipedia defines it as a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. But made by whom? When I think of a blog I typically think of something personal and narative. That's what "journal style" means to me, but that's probably just because of my bias towards online diaries. The real question is, does Slashdot identify itself as a blog? Are the Slashdot "editors" insulted by the term? Does anyone really care if they are?

That is so cool! I'm gunna add that to my blog right now!

I use Blogger and I've found that I have no problem communicating in code. Syntax hilighting for different languages? Uhh no, but maybe if you recommended it to Google they'd do it as a summer of code project or something. In any case, I bet my blog is way geekier than yours!

*COUGH*pagefile attack*COUGH*
No info about rc2 yet, but if they didn't want to correct it in rc1, then... who knows...

From my blog post of... http://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/ Saturday, April 22, 2006 What Ever Happened with H2S Induced Hibernation? One year ago today... Mark Roth at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle announced the astounding ability to induced hibernation in mice by having them breathe 80 parts per million (ppm) hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S). Yes, that's the gas that smells like rotten eggs. Not only did these critters fall asleep for six hours, their heart rate and respiration dropped by 92% - apparently replicating the effects of true hibernation. And their temperature dropped to 2 degrees C above ambient temperature. They in effect became cold-blooded. It should also be noted, when the gas was removed, the mice awoke with no apparent ill effects. The critters could still run their maze in a normal fashion. There are hints that H2S Induced Hibernation might be a natural defense mechanism or at least a normal biological process. It appears this H2S gas is produced by the body under certain conditions and may be the key to normal hibernation. This may also be the cause of "Cold Water Shock Reflex" in which those who have "drowned" in cold water come back to life. At 80 ppm, H2S can not simply be replacing O2 in the blood which exist at 210,000 PPM in typical air. It seems that H2S acts more like a hormone causing ALL cells in the body to slow down at the same time. Is H2S the body's way of adjusting the thermostat? Hold on! I'm way out of my element here. I'm not qualified to do biology. I'm not even qualified to write about it. But I DO considered this ASTOUNDING news! And indeed the world reported it. Well at least in a tepid way. From the BBC to the Washington Post they did at least rehash Mark's original work. Even Wikipedia added three paragraphs to the Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) page. I was impressed with that. But THAT was it... I'm serious. Nothing more. No follow-up questions. No follow-up answers. No in-depth reporting. No detailed analysis. No flying out to Seattle. No camping on the lawn. No helicopter shots. No checking tax returns. Hell, Tom Cruise jumps up and down on a couch and the media follows him around for weeks! Where is the coverage for the stuff that REALLY counts? Oh well. I would wait. There was sure to be more news on the topic in a short time. So I set my Google news reader and waited... And waited... And waited... And I'm still waiting. It's been one year. Other than some comments from an aging blog and one think tank, there has been nothing at all. Nothing! Am I way off base or is this NOT a Nobel class discovery? Where's the follow-up from Mark Roth? Where's the H2S Induced Hibernation blog? Where are the frat boy posts about their flatulent experiments? Where's the Flatliner crew? Where's Kiefer Sutherland when we need him? Where are all the science fiction plots? When I read the news release last year, I thought follow-up would be like the coverage for Cold Fusion a few years ago - lots of people trying to reproduce the results. Maybe we would even get some quick test with humans. But no... Nothing. Nada. Zilch. What's a geek to do? There's only one thing. Ask the questions that SHOULD have been asked a year ago. So here goes. Does this Roth effect work longer than six hours? Does it work for days? Does it work for weeks? Does it work for months? Does it work on other larger mammals? Does it work on humans? Any obvious side effects? Any long term side effects? How long can someone stay under without ill effects? Does this low-level metabolism consume fat like it does in bears? Does muscle tone also atrophy? Does this low-level metabolism extend life? Is 80 PPM a threshold or is there a proportional effect at 40 PPM? 20 PPM? What happens at 160 ppm? Is the sleep deeper? (yes, I know H2S is deadly at higher concentration, but so is table salt). Is this truly a natural feature of mammals? If H2S is produced internally, can the effect be induced by meditation? If so, how does

It's the job of climatologists to consider things like natural cycles and what forcing effect CO2 has on climate vs. natural (usually short-term) fluctuation. New studies that refine their understanding have only reinforced previous evidence that the amplified greenhouse effect and it's feedbacks are primary. As for the argument that the temperature record isn't long enough, we also have multiple proxies that give an indication of climate back thousands of years (one of the points made here in response to that line of argument).
You say the sun is "getting hotter", but total solar irradiance has declined slightly over the last few years. Yes, it had been at a higher level, particularly in the late 20th century, but the change was apparently nowhere near enough to account for the trend. You can "believe" magnetic flux has increased radiation receipt, but where are the peer-reviewed studies indicating this, and that it's sufficient to explain a significant part of the multi-decadal change?
Regarding climate change on other planets, you can't really compare conditions on Earth with those of Jupiter and Mars, where there are other major factors at work other than solar irradiance, including orbital mechanics, and on Mars, higher temperature sensitivity due to the thin atmosphere and lack of oceans. Some detail on the Mars example here.
If memory serves, past regional fluctuation in Greenland was linked to a similar change in heat distribution as was largely responsible for 1930's warming in the U.S (an episode that was not as significant globally: http://globalwarmingtruth.org/anomalymaps.html). The magnitude of the current change not only appears greater, but it's also accompanied by a rapid worldwide glacial retreat. Confusing regional fluctuation with a protracted global trend is a common mistake - sometimes made purposely by fossil-funded doubt shops. This makes me wonder where you've been doing most of your research on the topic. As does your question about ice ages. You seem to be assuming climatologists think humans are the only influence on Earth's climate. It's pretty well understood that milankovitch cycles related to Earth's orbit are the initial forcing for glacial-interglacial cycles, and that this forcing is subtle and occurs over millennia.
What we have now is a significant long-term climate forcing (a carbon cycle imbalance), and an anomalous interglacial warming trend that's in it's early stages. Feedbacks and the oceanic distribution of extra heat over decades mean we aren't even seeing the full effect of recent emissions. The fact that we're still pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at such a high rate, and risking the release of more CO2 and methane from warming, is something worth paying attention to.

Actually, I can think of three services Google bought rather than built: Blogger, Google Earth, and Sketchup.

--Pat

Why, Fox News, of course!

You make it sound so partisian, like there exists a major party that doesn't lie through its teeth.

Getting it out the door is more important than if it's ready.

At the time it's released, Mac will have another OS out but that's beside the point. That only matters to people that are `on the fence` OS wise and not a significant number. In the halls of the OS engineers, it matters as it proves what insiders at MS have said that "Microsoft isn't able to ship products anymore."

When SP1 is released, there will be hoopla and hype that Vista will have even more features, be more stable, and even more secure.

I am skeptical about this guy, but make up your own mind, Original blog post about Nintendo Wii having Linux on it: http://saruwatari-wii.blogspot.com/2006/07/softwar e-in-wii.html

Oh he's a fake alright. The most obvious reason is that if he did have any connections with Nintendo he'd of been fired or sued for NDA breach by now. Another obvious reason is that some of his previous statements have already been proven false.

As for a Linux OS on the Wii, I doubt it. It's memory footprint is too large for one thing, but mainly because it's not suited to job at hand. Console OSs are not like Desktop OSs. They don't stay persistant in memory while a game is playing, in fact you could call them glorified boot-loaders. All they allowed you to do was change a few system setting, like the clock, and load a game. Once the game was loaded, it took full control of the system and the 'OS' is completely removed from memory. This allows games to utilise all the memory and reduces the overhead, boosting speed.

From what I'm understand this is changing for the 360 and the PS3, so that you can access the menu and 'Live' within a game, but whether that will be the same for the Wii is another matter. But the Wii-mote does have a 'home' button, so you never know...

"Wii will have Linux as operating system with proprietary GUI and applications based on commonly open source for Linux programs."

but the final system in closed and will allow only signed code etc and will be very secure, even though it's technically compatible with a world of already existing software

An open letter to antitrust, competition, consumer and trade practice monitoring agency officials worldwide.

The role of trade practice and antitrust legislation is to provide the consumer with protection from abusive business practices and monopolies. In one of the most serous cases of monopolization in the information technology industry, the agencies charged with protecting the competitive process and the consumer have utterly failed to stem the offending corporation's anti-competitive practices.

The Microsoft corporation has been under continuous investigation by antitrust policing agencies since 1989. Despite this scrutiny, the Microsoft corporation, using covert and overt anti-competitive business tactics, has maintained an unabated campaign against alternatives to Microsoft Windows operating system platforms and Microsoft applications.

For years the Microsoft corporation has earned around 70% to 80% net profit from sales of its operating systems and application software. Only in areas like Thailand where Linux on the desktop has just begun to gain a foothold has Microsoft stated that it will release versions of its operating system platform and application software at a lower price to Original Equipment Manufactures (OEMs) and retail consumers than is available in the rest of the modern world. Consumers benefit where real competition exists.

The world desktop operating system market remains predominantly monopolized by Microsoft. Over the last decade, Microsoft continued to lever its desktop platform monopoly to the point where it now holds a dominant position worldwide in the application office suite and web browser software markets. On its own, the current USA Department Of Justice (DOJ) settlement with the Microsoft corporation has failed to bring about any restoration of serous competition to the desktop operating system market. Microsoft continues to use similar anti-competitive business tactics in an attempt to monopolize the digital media player and the desktop services server markets. Competing vendors increasingly find that they can no longer compete with Microsoft if they limit themselves to only the traditional closed source model of software development.

In the last six years information technology vendors have adopted techniques and resources from two existing movements geared toward the construction of software. The newer open source movement, represented by the non-profit Open Source Initiative (OSI) corporation, emphasizes the licensing of software in a manner which encourages its collaborative development in an open environment. The older free software movement, represented by the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF), focuses on the ethical issues surrounding the licensing of software. The free software movement emphasizes freedoms which are often taken for granted outside of the field of software: the freedom to use, study how something works, improve or adapt it and redistribute.

The Free Software Foundation offers two software license schemes which are compatible with their own goals and those of the Open Source Initiative: The GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL). Essentially, the GPL and LGPL licenses grant the recipient extra rights than that granted by copyright law. Both licenses insure that a contributer or distributer of a GPL or LGPL licensed work may not further impede downstream recipients the rights granted by the same license. Many developing software in an open source manner have realized that this benefit offered by the GPL and LGPL licenses outweigh any potential losses. The licensing also insures that no contributing or distributing vendor or group of vendors could potentially monopolize the market, insuring that real market competition dictates price. Just as the automotive indus

NATURAL SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING. In the year 1905, Nobel physicist, Albert Einstein, published his E=mc EQUATION, which opened the door to THE WORLD OF THE PROTON GENIE, the door to all of the abundant energy that Earth will ever need. But, nobody looked or listened except the Energy Cartel, which stood to loose its enormous wealth and power if Einstein's EQUATION should ever become implemented. Many have attempted to implement Einstein's EQUATION, but even the most promising successful efforts are routinely thwarted. In brief review, "E=mc" provides the basis for extracting and fusing PROTONS from ordinary, pure water, which will ultimately make everybody on Earth so idly rich and content from the benefits of this clean, virtually-free, and inexhaustible energy supply that nobody should ever again have to worry about pollution, war, or poverty, and Mother Nature will once again regain total control of any Climate Changes. The Atomic Doomsday Clock reads, "7 minutes until Doomsday, and counting!" Is it too late? Or, will some ordinary, individual Tinkerer (maybe just an average high school student) rise to the occasion, connect the dots, and construct a simple physical demonstration of Einstein's EQUATION so that the entire World Population can become enlightened to the prospect of a new future of peace, contentment, and prosperity? Anything less will fail to uncork the PROTON GENIE for the benefit of mankind because "The Special Energy Interests" have sufficient resources to block any individual efforts to provide Cheap Power. Please encourage your correspondents to link to this blog, and help spread Einstein's great-inspired VISION, "A Free-Energy Paradise On Earth." http://howtosavecivilization.blogspot.com/

My site is down because of slashdotting. I have put up the article at http://nannyindia.blogspot.com/ Cowboy Neal, can you please change the link in your post so that the traffic subsides and I am able to put my blog back up?

Mudeth, see http://nannyindia.blogspot.com/

That would be "As the Apple Turns II" at: http://appleturns.blogspot.com/ or "Crazy Apple Rumors" at: http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/.

Had trouble getting this, others obviously as well, so here it is.

---

The Discreet Charms of the Nanny State
Published by Shivam Vij October 6th, 2006 in The Internet and bylines.

Books and films are banned as a result of protests when someone claims to be offended, but websites are blocked unilaterally, clandestinely by the government in its benign attempt to save you from propaganda of both the extreme left and the extreme right.

An edited version of this article by me has appeared in Tehelka.

On 29 June this year, the Department of Telecom of the Ministry of India's Communication and Information Technology asked some 150 Internet Servive Providers to block access to the website of the People's War Group, www.geocities.com/cpimlpwg. Exactly a month later, the DoT issues another letter informing ISPs that "M/S Yahoo! Inc." (which runs Geocities) had removed the PWG site anyway, and so all ISPs were requested to make sure that Geocities per se was not blocked.

This is the first time a provider of Internet services has agreed to the Indian government's demand of completely removing a particular website, thus establishing a dangerous precedent. Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft do this regularly for China and other countries, with the difference that it is public knowledge there, and these companies come under attack from free speech activists the world over.

It is curious as to what made Yahoo! Change its mind about India: in 2003 they had refused the India's demand to remove a mailing list run on Yahoo! Groups by a banned militant outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), a militant outfit of the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya.

The terms and conditions of these online services - which no one reads - clearly say that they may terminate their services on requests by law enforcement or other government agencies without prior notice.

On 15 May 2006, the Maoist website www.peoplesmarch.com was deleted by their hosting company on the request of the Indian government. Not that it has made much of a difference to them: they're now at http://peoplesmarch.googlepages.com/ whose homepage asserts their right to free speech and condemns India's censorship attempts. So how long before this site gets blocked too? To be sure they have put up all their content on http://peoplesmarch.wordpress.com/ as well. Planning to block this one too? They have the content stored somewhere on their hard disk and they'll put it up on a thousand free sites. There's also http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/ and many more.

The most illustrative case of Internet censorship in India is that of Hinduunity.org, which, though run from the US by one Rohit Vyasmaan, claims to be the official website of the Bajrang Dal. The Hindu Unity site posts anti-Muslim hate speech, creative interpretation of Qur'anic verses and most famously, a "hit list" of those who it says are against Hindus. The hit list has on it not just leftist columnists but also people and organisations who in India would be regarded as being somewhat sympathetic to Hindutva. Lalu Prasad Yadav is listed for "swindling Gau-chara's money"!

In 2001, the site's then host in the US, Addr.com, received complaints about the site. Vyasmaan told Addr.com that his site did not advocate violence, but they shut down the site anyway for its very obvious hate speech. As it happened, Hinduunity.org was then rescued by Rabbi Meir's Kahane group, a banned Zionist organisation in the US. Hinduunity now advocates "Hindu militancy" on its site, and heavily aligns with the anti-Palestine cause. No wonder it is block in countries of the Middle East as well.

Hinduunity.org was first blocked by India in 2004, when the NDA was in power and when the site was calling Atal Bihari Vajpayee names for 'catching the pseudo-secularism bug'. Curiously, in July 2006 the DoT again asked for

How Much Would Founders and VCs Make on A YouTube Sale? YouTube may be wanting to sell because there are so many questions about its future. How much would everyone make if YouTube sold today? If the company sold at $1.5 billion, assuming the rule of 3, i.e. VCs own 1/3 and Founders own 1/3 and employees own 1/3, then here is what everyone would make: Sequoia Capital - $500 million. They invested about $30 million So, that would be 16x their money. Not bad. Not a Google homerun, but great for less than two years worth of work. More ... http://mrwavetheory.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-much- would-founders-and-vcs-make.html

This post will almost certainly get modded into the basement, but what the hell.

I have been watching the blogs and noticed an interesting phenomenon that arises there, as a function of the lack of moderation, quality control, or anything like that. The fact that bloggers can post what they wish and also delete comments that might challenge their positions can lead to some pretty unhealthy outcomes.

Although I hate it when folks post commercials for their blogs as much as the next person, I am going to suggest that interested folks might want to look at a couple of recent posts that deal with these issues. My post Poison Girls describes in detail the kinds of things that can go wrong when there is no quality control. Another post, Blogs and 'Community Solipsism' also deals with this issue. Both posts offer concrete examples.

I am an academic and thus have some investment in the blind refereeing process. It is far from perfect, but it keeps some of the worst excesses of 'anything goes' at bay. Hopefully, something like the slashdot system will get implemented for blogs too.

What really concerns me is seeing people who lack competence in a field, still pontificating at length on topics. People who do not know better tend to get sucked in by the more manipulative types. They end up listening to worthless advice, yet taking it as gospel. For instance, I have a colleague who is pretty much a failed academic. They have had nothing appear in print for over six years (however, they are tenured). Yet, they are currently offering apparently sagely advice on being a scholar. The putative advice is bad and misleading. Yet, there is nothing that can be done about it.

My best response is to remind folks that, as the Bard said in the Merchant of Venice, "All that glisters is not gold" and that is especially true in the world of blogs, yet it seems that the problems appear to continue. Any comments or suggestions on this matter would be very welcome. I live in fear of the day that a high school kid starts claiming to be a cancer physician and offering bad advice to people with serious health issues. In the blog arena, it appears that it is likely to be believed by some. This is a very scarey thought.

This post will almost certainly get modded into the basement, but what the hell.

I have been watching the blogs and noticed an interesting phenomenon that arises there, as a function of the lack of moderation, quality control, or anything like that. The fact that bloggers can post what they wish and also delete comments that might challenge their positions can lead to some pretty unhealthy outcomes.

Although I hate it when folks post commercials for their blogs as much as the next person, I am going to suggest that interested folks might want to look at a couple of recent posts that deal with these issues. My post Poison Girls describes in detail the kinds of things that can go wrong when there is no quality control. Another post, Blogs and 'Community Solipsism' also deals with this issue. Both posts offer concrete examples.

I am an academic and thus have some investment in the blind refereeing process. It is far from perfect, but it keeps some of the worst excesses of 'anything goes' at bay. Hopefully, something like the slashdot system will get implemented for blogs too.

What really concerns me is seeing people who lack competence in a field, still pontificating at length on topics. People who do not know better tend to get sucked in by the more manipulative types. They end up listening to worthless advice, yet taking it as gospel. For instance, I have a colleague who is pretty much a failed academic. They have had nothing appear in print for over six years (however, they are tenured). Yet, they are currently offering apparently sagely advice on being a scholar. The putative advice is bad and misleading. Yet, there is nothing that can be done about it.

My best response is to remind folks that, as the Bard said in the Merchant of Venice, "All that glisters is not gold" and that is especially true in the world of blogs, yet it seems that the problems appear to continue. Any comments or suggestions on this matter would be very welcome. I live in fear of the day that a high school kid starts claiming to be a cancer physician and offering bad advice to people with serious health issues. In the blog arena, it appears that it is likely to be believed by some. This is a very scarey thought.

I once had the idea that any OS that one installs on a PC needs to more or less match the time the PC was put on the market so as to provide drivers for the hardware, etc. A Pentium II equals Windows 98.

I have had lots of problems getting linux 2.6 kernel OS's to run fast enough on Pentium II's, for instance.
If that meant putting SuSE 6.3 on one of those, then that's what I did.

From the get-go Microsoft said that Vista would require a lot more in the way of memory, graphics, processor speed than previous products. I think they have backed off somewhat on that, with a tiered setup, allowing for some older boxes. I know XP has been factory-installed on machines with only 128 MB of RAM, with the result running way too slow. Getting that price way down, apparently.

I stick with a 2.4 kernel for my knoppix remaster Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux and I am able to get the latest web browsers, Firefox 2.0, Opera 9, Flock (based on Mozilla 1.5.0.7) to run on Pentium II and AMD K6-2 with 128 MB of RAM. The on-chip cache seems to make a big difference, those processors with only 64 K cache run slower than those with 512K, some almost unacceptable if running only 266 MHZ.
I get good results with AMD running 400 MHZ/ 128MB RAM, and excellent results with 256MB RAM.

The SuSE 6.3 installs won't run the latest web browsers, and it takes a lot of time to configure. I usually dd the install to a new HDD to save time. Generally too much trouble compared to the livecd linux.

I'd like to install this trial Vista, but don't have a spare box of sufficient power, and I know this OS will time out soon, and most likely won't give the protection against viruses, trojans, etc. than I have already with my remaster.

I'm able to run Google Earth using my remaster, with a "knoppix.img" for the ~/ on a spare HDD partition.
Google Earth runs just fine, although I have discovered, like others, that the maps are old.
This box I'm using now has a P4 HT, with 1 GB RAM, 128MB ATI, plenty for Vista, but installing the Vista RC would probably hose my XP Pro install here. I rarely use it, but did pay for it in the beginning. Had to fix it a lot, one time had to reinstall. Too much trouble overall, and wouldn't expect Vista to be any different over a few years use.

Main thing I like about running my remaster using a "fromhd=/dev/hda3" setup, with a "knoppix.img" is that the hard drive activity is way down, compared to running XP. The drive stays really quiet, much easier on the box as a whole. I have 320GB of HDD space, and I would imagine that Vista would work those drives over pretty good, compared to what I have right now.

I know I am missing a wonderful "out of box experience" with the Vista install, but I like to get results quicker than that, so that's why I use a livecd linux.

-- Rapidweather

We still have "investigative reporting" (e.g. Bob Woodward et al). My point is most average joes would not normally have the kind of clout with the press that a Woodward-type has, but scandals like the guard memos and such have elevated bloggers to the point where the major cable outlets regularly devote segments to "the blogosphere." My favorite crossover is when the beat reporters get into the blog game - even getting their blogs promoted by the major media outlets (as is the case with my local paper's website, philly.com). Some of the reporter blogs are extremely readable, providing better coverage where the regular constraints of daily publication are not applied.

See e.g. Dick Polman or Howard Kurtz - great reporters with great blogs. When traditional media embraces this kind of outlet, I think you can make an argument that "new media" has arrived, yes.

http://jiyocricket.blogspot.com/2006/10/channel-4- call-centre-id-theft-exposed.html crazy stuff. all ur data belongs to them

Sure, much like Brian said! (Find "birds" in the linked page)
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b.log

You can sign up for the beta by visiting the home page of the Venice Project. But before doing so, I would read the privacy policy. Kazaa was notorious for installing spyware on users' computers and it looks like The Venice Project will be making great efforts to do data collection on users. This is just the boilerplate from the web site on what the software will collect: When you register to become a user of a TVP website, service or software, TVP collects certain information such as your first and last name, e-mail address, location, and birth date, as well as information about your use of TVP features and contributions of content. http://mrwavetheory.blogspot.com/2006/10/skype-fou nders-launch-venice-project.html

I couldn't read the link from the posted story - slashdot'd - but it looks like (according to him) this isn't the first time that he's been ripped off in a deal with News Corp

see: http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/who-is-bra d-greenspan-and-why-is-he-so.html

and

http://www.insiderstocksales.com/insidersales.htm (cool flash if your into that kind of stuff)

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that every republican is a hypocrite. Indeed, that would be a logical fallacy.

What I'm saying is that time after time, high-profile republicans, which run on a platforms of traditional values, have repeatedly demonstrated that, privately, such values aren't important to them at all. This should cast doubt upon the party's position that it is a beacon of morality in American politics

We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission.

--Pat