Slashdot Mirror

It seems to get to here, then starts looping.

There's ten minutes I'll never get back.

Yes, actually. I've seen an extensive study on the subject of recursive humour, and it actually increases exponentially with each retelling. For more information, see here.

Mirror

For the third year in a row, Urgo's list of April Fool's Jokes on Websites contains the most complete list of April Fool's Day pranks websites have created. Featured by news.com.com.com.. and Microsoft, the site strives to list EVERY joke site, and is updated every few minutes with new verified jokes.

Here is a sample, the twenty most popular ones:
blog.outer-court.com - Google Rooms
thinkgeek.com - USB Tanning Center, RFID Blocking T-shirt, Grow Your mymsnsearch.com - fake (but hilariously accurate) search results gtachicago.com - gta chicago does not exist, (*hint check the whois info*)
tveps.net - Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. Comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.
iwantoneofthose.com - tiny device that downloads your brain's memory to a 2GB USB Flash Drive
blizzard.com - BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT® PRESENTS BURGERCRAFT(TM)
bolloxcomics.co.uk - Myspace parody
figuiere.net - int is_computer_on(void)
wiebetech.com - 5 TB iPod
googlesystem.blogspot.com - Google Browser is finally launched. Installer 1.68MB
steampowered.com - VALVe purchased by Apple
slashdot.org - OMG!!! PONIES!!! (and pink layout)
ogrish.com - (NSFW) Bizarre Baby Born In Nepal
worldofwarcraft.com - Blizzard to put Wisps as a playable race for World of Warcraft.
gearlog.com - Laptop Lingerie: Bringing Tech & Pleasure Together
2600.com - 200600 google spoof
bungie.net - Bungie's next game, Pimps At Sea, progessing nicely for the Xbox360
forums.worldofwarcraft.com - World of Warcraft 1.11 patch notes leaked
theregister.co.uk - customise The Register to suit your needs - from blocking ads, to selecting the kind of stories you really want to read.

For the third year in a row, Urgo's list of April Fool's Jokes on Websites contains the most complete list of April Fool's Day pranks websites have created. Featured by news.com.com.com.. and Microsoft, the site strives to list EVERY joke site, and is updated every few minutes with new verified jokes.

Here is a sample, the twenty most popular ones:
mymsnsearch.com - fake (but hilariously accurate) search results
thinkgeek.com - USB Tanning Center, RFID Blocking T-shirt, Grow Your Own 1up Mushroom Kit, Caffeine Inhaler, and more
blog.outer-court.com - Google Rooms
gtachicago.com - gta chicago does not exist, (*hint check the whois info*)
tveps.net - Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. Comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.
blizzard.com - BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT® PRESENTS BURGERCRAFT(TM)
iwantoneofthose.com - tiny device that downloads your brain's memory to a 2GB USB Flash Drive
bolloxcomics.co.uk - Myspace parody
wiebetech.com - 5 TB iPod
googlesystem.blogspot.com - Google Browser is finally launched. Installer 1.68MB
figuiere.net - int is_computer_on(void)
steampowered.com - VALVe purchased by Apple
slashdot.org - OMG!!! PONIES!!! (and pink layout)
ogrish.com - (NSFW) Bizarre Baby Born In Nepal
worldofwarcraft.com - Blizzard to put Wisps as a playable race for World of Warcraft.
gearlog.com - Laptop Lingerie: Bringing Tech & Pleasure Together
2600.com - 200600 google spoof
bungie.net - Bungie's next game, Pimps At Sea, progessing nicely for the Xbox360
forums.worldofwarcraft.com - World of Warcraft 1.11 patch notes leaked
theregister.co.uk - customise The Register to suit your needs - from blocking ads, to selecting the kind of stories you really want to read.

For the third year in a row, Urgo's list of April Fool's Jokes on Websites contains the most complete list of April Fool's Day pranks websites have created. Featured by news.com.com.com.. and Microsoft, the site strives to list EVERY joke site, and is updated every few minutes with new verified jokes. wikipedia also contains a sizeable list.

Sample:

tveps.net - Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. Comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.

thinkgeek.com - USB Tanning Center, RFID Blocking T-shirt, Grow Your Own 1up Mushroom Kit, Caffeine Inhaler, and more

theregister.co.uk - customise The Register to suit your needs - from blocking ads, to selecting the kind of stories you really want to read.

worldofwarcraft.com - Blizzard to put Wisps as a playable race for World of Warcraft.

tvpredictions.com - Ready for X-ray TV? New TV picture technology even clearer than HDTV; you can actually see through people's clothing on TV.

blizzard.com - BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT® PRESENTS BURGERCRAFT(TM)

bolloxcomics.co.uk - Myspace parody

bolloxcomics.co.uk - YTMND parody

wiebetech.com - 5 TB iPod

sideshowtoy.com - Half a Darth Maul Figure Exclusive?

slashdot.org - OMG!!! PONIES!!! (and pink layout)

whirlpool.net.au - Telstra will only release 2mbit ADSL2+ in Australia.

forums.worldofwarcraft.com - World of Warcraft 1.11 patch notes leaked

mymsnsearch.com - fake (but hilariously accurate) search results

gearlog.com - Laptop Lingerie: Bringing Tech & Pleasure Together

googlesystem.blogspot.com - Google Browser is finally launched. Installer 1.68MB

sordeo.com - mirror image and the title says, 'Now optimized for those afflicted with Dyslexia'

eternal-lands.com - Free Software Foundation buys Eternal Lands

For the third year in a row, Urgo's list of April Fool's Jokes on Websites contains the most complete list of April Fool's Day pranks websites have created. Featured by news.com.com.com.. and Microsoft, the site strives to list EVERY joke site, and is updated every few minutes with new verified jokes. wikipedia also contains a sizeable list.

Sample
tveps.net - Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. Comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.
thinkgeek.com - USB Tanning Center, RFID Blocking T-shirt, Grow Your Own 1up Mushroom Kit, Caffeine Inhaler, and more
theregister.co.uk - customise The Register to suit your needs - from blocking ads, to selecting the kind of stories you really want to read.
worldofwarcraft.com - Blizzard to put Wisps as a playable race for World of Warcraft.
tvpredictions.com - Ready for X-ray TV? New TV picture technology even clearer than HDTV; you can actually see through people's clothing on TV.
blizzard.com - BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT® PRESENTS BURGERCRAFT(TM)
bolloxcomics.co.uk - Myspace parody
bolloxcomics.co.uk - YTMND parody
wiebetech.com - 5 TB iPod
sideshowtoy.com - Half a Darth Maul Figure Exclusive?
slashdot.org - OMG!!! PONIES!!! (and pink layout)
whirlpool.net.au - Telstra will only release 2mbit ADSL2+ in Australia.
forums.worldofwarcraft.com - World of Warcraft 1.11 patch notes leaked
mymsnsearch.com - fake (but hilariously accurate) search results
gearlog.com - Laptop Lingerie: Bringing Tech & Pleasure Together
googlesystem.blogspot.com - Google Browser is finally launched. Installer 1.68MB
sordeo.com - mirror image and the title says, 'Now optimized for those afflicted with Dyslexia'
eternal-lands.com - Free Software Foundation buys Eternal Lands

I just got the third in a week. First two were from the same Phisherman posing as an eBay buyer (precisionlaptops4u).
Got another yesterday posing as a paypal email.
To try to expose these clowns, I do a reverse DNS lookup, a WHOIS lookup, and Google on key words, and publish the results on my Blog. http://mrlinuxhead.blogspot.com/
The IP address, port scans, who the domain owner is, the street address, email address and phone numbers, whatever I can find out about them I publish for the local authorities to deal with.
Even if the web server administrator is blameless, they will get enough attention to take action. One common infection I have notice across all of the servers is a W32.MyDoom infection. Anyone else see that?

Originally posted on my blog http://pspexperience.blogspot.com/

I wrote an email to Next-Generation Magazine in regards to this article http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=2626&Itemid=2. Please check it out, and read my email to them that I sent as a reaction to the article:


In regards to your article "Wal-Mart Quiting UMD Movies", I wanted to say that I
have given quite some thought to the UMD movie problem that the movie
industry is having. The problem is not that the PSP is not movie
machine and only a gaming machine. Those are statements that people
say who haven't used the device consistently every day for the last
year. The PSP is most aptly a gaming AND movie device, lesser a music
device (iPod still beats it hands down). The problem isn't that
consumers don't want to watch movies on the PSP. The problem is that
UMD movies are priced so high that a PSP owner will look at a game vs.
a movie and rather blow $40US on a game that they would probably play a
lot, rather than spend $20US on a movie they may only watch a couple of
times.

The problem I see with this is that UMD movies do not provide enough
value for consumers to purchase at the pricepoint retailers are asking
for. Granted there was market analysis done on the kinds of UMD movies
people were watching, and mostly it was comedies and action, two known
generes that have HIGH replayability factor. When you start selling
movies like "Rent" on UMD, who the heck is going to watch it more than
once? You're not going to buy a boring drama that you might only watch
once every 6 months. Granted there are collectors of UMD movies, but
they represent the minority. Comedies and action movies have higher
value than other genres, and consumers want the best bang for their
buck. UMD games currently offer this proposition.

If Sony and the other movie studios were to reduce their pricing for
UMDs to something more reasonable like $8-10US per UMD, I think
consumers would feel better about parting with their money for a UMD
movie, and probably feel inclined to buy a movie they might not
otherwise at $20US. I know when I saw a sale on for UMD movies at
Blockbuster where selected titles were $8US each if I bought 2, I
snatched 2 titles up IMMEDIATELY. Granted I wanted stuff I could watch
again and again, but you get the picture.

I write this to you because you guys get this industry. It seems that
the industry is not getting the consumer in this particular case.
Before we close the door completely on the UMD movie business, lets
look at how we can price the UMD movie back into the entertainment
market, not out of it. It might be valuable to discuss this further
from the consumer standpoint.

Regards,

Cory Koski


As you can read, its very similar to my other UMD movie blog post. The industry HAS to reduce the price of this format, or it's doomed to obscurity, just like MiniDisc and BetaMax.

You object to filters while proposing that parents pipe their kids' computer through a proxy? It seems to me you're objecting to one kind of technological solution while embracing another. Remote parenting is just as irresponsible whether accomplished through a filter or a proxy.

I was blown away by Apple's customer service as well. When I first got my iPod Nano, the white headphones that came with it broke after a week. I filed a form on Apple's website. Within 1 hour (this was at 2 am at night) I got a reply from a technician, and a new pair was overnighted to me the next day! I have never seen customer service that paralleled this, except in corporate. Very impressive.

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

I got so tired of explaining it over and over. Ultimate Spyware/Virus Blocker. If you think there is something I need to add or remove then please leave a comment.

My friend is opening up a coffee shop that will have an ap. I will make some copies of Ubuntu for the customers to use.

Now where do I find a dentist for the rootkit I received when I didn't take my own advice :)

Out of curiosity, did you follow up to see what bottom-line impact the "leaders" you hired had? In every company, there are quite a few good bullshitters expert at running in front of a parade and swinging a baton, or regurgitating bits and pieces they gleaned from a hallway conversation and passing it off as their own deep insight. Microsoft may have more than its fair share of these employee gems, judging from this blog.

Red Hat Linux ( I forgot my password- damn firefox feature) Visit My Blog http://history-guy.blogspot.com/

creates a legit-looking website or email that is in fact illegit to steal info from you, what's term for when a major financial company creates a illegit-looking website that is legit?

And what is it called when a bank like Washington Mutual informs an 80 year-old woman that she compromised her account information by simply answering "yes" over the phone when asked if her bank is located in a certain city?

http://wamublamesgrandma.blogspot.com/2006/03/wamu s-response-to-my-letter.html

More often than stupidity (which seems to be the most popular explanation around here), it's just simple inexperience. Commonsense is what phishers rely on to phuck you.

A big part of the problem is that, for as much energy as these major financial institutions have put into trying to stop phishing, they've put in as much to displacing responsibility for the security of their system on to their customers who SHOULD know a lot less on such matters. In doing so, they help facilitate this crap.

I got "phished" a week ago from some scammer with a eBay handle of "precisionlaptops4u" looking for eBay logins. I emailed eBay and hoped they could shut the perp down. And then again yesterday I got another one. Same guy, same scam. The URL is : http://1342912795/intranet/forum/templates/subSilv er/images/wsbleh/ebay/index.html I started looking at the problem myself and put my findings at my Bloger blog. http://mrlinuxhead.blogspot.com/ Same guy is still up, and doing it today.

Have you heard of NANI and how it will be implemented? http://2010ukid.blogspot.com/2006/03/one-number-to -bring-them-all-and-in.html

I read this earlier this month and thought it could have some merrit, but probably not.

After all, we are talking Apple rumors AND it is April Fools day.

Other Apple-April Fools links:

iGame - yeah, right.
New video iPod - possible?
iNote - nice pics ;)
Media Center - err... nevermind.

Well if nothing else, maybe we get some fun new photoshopped Apple toys to dream about.

Fair enough. Microsoft is a big place, and there are varying degrees of freedom. I once walked into someone's office and saw that he had a Putty shell open to his Linux box at home, and it was right there in the middle of his screen. I asked him "How can I get into your department?" :)

I think my former boss worked in MSN at one point, which could explain the Google sensitivity. Besides having been ordered to not use Google (the verb, or, especially, the search engine), I was also ordered not to use any mail client other than Outlook.

I know Microsoft is hardly the only company to have an official software load, but at other places I've worked, you could generally use alternative mail clients, browsers, or often even OSes (Linux and FreeBSD being my favorites, for those who wonder if I work for Apple (no, I don't), with the stipulation that you were on your own for support. Don't call the IT department unless it's broken hardware. Fair enough, I'd rather fix it myself than call the help desk anyway.

However, Microsoft (at least the parts of it I worked in) takes that attitude to an extreme. I've never seen such a case of not-invented-here syndrome. Every where you go, people (especially the people who authorize whether you can use something or not) don't care about whether something is the best tool for the job (or even a good tool for the job, sometimes). They care most about one thing - did Microsoft invent this tool or technology? If not, you probably won't be allowed to use it. Not even if it's free. And never, if it's open source (well, maybe, if it's under a BSD license, but even that is rare. I never personally encountered it).

There's a lot of churn inside of Microsoft right now, and it's trying mightily (desperately, even) to reinvent itself. If you don't read the minimsft blog, check it out for a lot of great insight. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/

Will that reinvention be successful? I think it's too soon to tell. Microsoft is so big nothing could put it out of business, but I believe that Microsoft will continue to lose both dominance and relevance in the industry until it is on a roughly equal footing with several other players, such as Linux, Apple (on the desktop, anyway), IBM, and the hardware vendors that buy so much software from MSFT. Look at how much the balance has tipped back toward those hardware vendors in the last few years. Five years ago, if Microsoft said "Jump!" they all asked "How high?"

As for me, I'm now working for a much smaller company that uses mostly open source software, and I'm much happier than I was at Microsoft. Microsoft can be a great place to work for some people. The pay isn't bad and the benefits are the best in the business, but I found it stifling. I now make more money (but less benefits, no surprise) than I did at Microsoft, and I have freedom to use the tools that work for me.

Someone in this thread wrote about not considering Microsoft after graduating because they are considered just like IBM, et al. I'd actually much rather work at IBM, but that aside, that poster is spot on. If you're graduating and considering employers and want to change the world, don't look at Microsoft et al. Find some small company doing something cool, and do great things. Or maybe try Apple, I've heard it's cool (no, I don't work there, but I do have a small amount of Apple stock).

This reminds me of a proposal I saw to use pulsars as a sort of "Interstellar GPS," making use of their signals to determine one's location. The description from Selenian Boondocks:

The other [Microcosm proposal] that appeared even more interesting to me was the idea (which I'll dub X-ray Pulsar Positioning System or XPPS for short) of using naturally occuring signals from X-ray Pulsars to provide positioning and attitude data anywhere in the solar system, not just inside the orbit of existing GPS satellites. If something like that works, it could make interplanetary navigation substantially easier, much as GPS has made terrestrial navigation so much easier. GPS is really convenient, and it would be nice to get even some of the benefits of it without having to pay the huge infrastructure costs of setting up systems like that around every interesting planet or moon that we want to settle in the future. All that said, this is just a Phase I SBIR, and it would be interesting to know more about how they were actually planning on doing this. Anyone have any thoughts?

http://www.regimechangeiran.com/ (which points to http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/ )

The cells Dr. Lima transplants do come from an adult source, but characterizing them as stem cells is incorrect. I have written about this before.

I have also written about the umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants.

Interestingly, the surgery involved in both transplants involves decompression surgery. Decompression of a compressed cord, by itself, can lead to substantial gains.

Of more interest, the doctors in South Korea are developing a percutaneous method of delivering the UCBSCs that will not involve surgery. When performed (preferably in a controlled study), this will definitely prove or disprove if it works.

* National Identity Registration Number
* the number of any ID card issued
* allocated national insurance number
* the number of any relevant immigration document
* the number of their United Kingdom passport
* the number of any passport issued to the individual by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation
* the number of any document that can be used by them (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
* the number of any identity card issued to him/her by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom
* any reference number allocated to him/her by the secretary of state in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom
* the number of any work permit relating to him/her;
* any driver number given to him/her by a driving licence;
* the number of any designated document which is held by him/her and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs

In other words, primary keys to all the major Government databases. The only one that isn't on there is our medical records, but that's why we're all being given a special number, the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN). When this is added to databases, it will be a piece of cake for Government to index our medical records as well.

I'm sure most people here understands databases, but for those who don't, this means the Government are creating a big database on innocent citizens. In fact, it's by far the most intrusive database ever. China doesn't have anything this intrusive. The Stasi didn't. Even North Korea doesn't.

ANPR means we're already being tracked around the clock and will be linked via your driving license number. If your ISP asks for your NIRN, find a new one.

The Tories betrayed the country on this one. Well done Mr Blair, you created Orwell's 1984.

Next up, the Democracy Bypass Bill. God help us all.

No, Windows has a really crippled and crappy implimentation.

http://woct-blog.blogspot.com/2005/01/dep-evasion- technique.html

Also, check out this links.

Hel-Mart

Sprawl Busters

PBS Store Wars- Facts About Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Blows.com

Wal-Mart Litigation Project

Wal-Mart Movie

Wal-Mart Sucks.org

Wal-Mart Watch

Wal-Mart vs Women

As has been discussed so many times on /. most of the problems with the Diebold stems from the unneccessary complexity of the system

Other systems in use like the Indian Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs, offer all of the functional features with a much higher level of security and accessibility and for a price that is very easy on the taxpayers. For a very interesting comparison look at http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-com pared-with-diebold.html

I as a student in best university of Iran (http://sharif.ir/en) like Mohammad Khatami because he won't let something like attack to the students happen in his presidential period. It's nice to see what happened to us just a few days ago: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/6035b fe4-0e35-4807-ad4b-cdd4fce89821.html for Photos visit http://sharifpic.blogspot.com/ Those idiots who invited people not to vote for presidential election should now realize what they had done to Young generation in Iran. how long can we wait and see they are burning our university and all things that we have? The point is that waiting for revolution or attack!! is not a wise solution for us. Reform may be the best way but with Idiots who vote to new president and more who did'nt vote there is no way for us:(

Sure, here is an example: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Now we just need more governments to follow suit. No longer shall we be subjected to the mindless twaddle that the bored lunatics of the world waffle on about.
I mean:
http://weirdforcesgathering.blogspot.com/
COME ON! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!??!

There are those who say that "well you don't have to read the drivel if you don't want to" and "at least it keeps them busy".
To those people I say "NO! You're wrong"... no argument though, that's about as far as it goes.

Obligatory list of persian blogs
Wiki article

A few that I personally like.

Political blogs:
Brooding Persian
Iranian Truth
Eyeranian

Funny
Shirin
Negar
Lost in Texas
Ok fine this is mine sometimes I think I am funny

And a note on the numbers, I have no clue how they came up with that but I have a hard time believing any of it. Blogsbyiranians list any blog that Hossein comes across and it has a list of 100-200. My personal opinion is that there are about 5000 active persian blogs. Oh and cause I know someone will ask for it. some iranian porn

Obligatory list of persian blogs
Wiki article

A few that I personally like.

Political blogs:
Brooding Persian
Iranian Truth
Eyeranian

Funny
Shirin
Negar
Lost in Texas
Ok fine this is mine sometimes I think I am funny

And a note on the numbers, I have no clue how they came up with that but I have a hard time believing any of it. Blogsbyiranians list any blog that Hossein comes across and it has a list of 100-200. My personal opinion is that there are about 5000 active persian blogs. Oh and cause I know someone will ask for it. some iranian porn

Obligatory list of persian blogs
Wiki article

A few that I personally like.

Political blogs:
Brooding Persian
Iranian Truth
Eyeranian

Funny
Shirin
Negar
Lost in Texas
Ok fine this is mine sometimes I think I am funny

And a note on the numbers, I have no clue how they came up with that but I have a hard time believing any of it. Blogsbyiranians list any blog that Hossein comes across and it has a list of 100-200. My personal opinion is that there are about 5000 active persian blogs. Oh and cause I know someone will ask for it. some iranian porn

Obligatory list of persian blogs
Wiki article

A few that I personally like.

Political blogs:
Brooding Persian
Iranian Truth
Eyeranian

Funny
Shirin
Negar
Lost in Texas
Ok fine this is mine sometimes I think I am funny

And a note on the numbers, I have no clue how they came up with that but I have a hard time believing any of it. Blogsbyiranians list any blog that Hossein comes across and it has a list of 100-200. My personal opinion is that there are about 5000 active persian blogs. Oh and cause I know someone will ask for it. some iranian porn

Faith Freedom site of Ali Sina
TheReligionOfPeace
EuroJihad (in polish)
Cox & Forkum (funny drawings)
JihadWatch
PravdaOIslamu (in czech)
Saudi blogger
Egyptian blogger
Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic site

Faith Freedom site of Ali Sina
TheReligionOfPeace
EuroJihad (in polish)
Cox & Forkum (funny drawings)
JihadWatch
PravdaOIslamu (in czech)
Saudi blogger
Egyptian blogger
Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic site

Greg,

Your xbox blog is legendary (http://xboxgamer.blogspot.com/). I know you still have a gaming PC for MMORPGs; why aren't they all running on the xbox Live network? What's it going to take before we give up gaming PCs for consoles? It seems like MMORPGs are the last holdout, but I can't figure out why they're holding out.

There is a difference.

Apple first does new stuff and then after it stabilizes tries to figure out how to add backwardcompatibility. (e.g. Mac OS X got support for Mac OS 9/earlier application not from the start)

M$ always throws backward compatibility from the start. Recall Win9x. Recall WinNT - and why it was considered such a failrure - it wasn't backward compatible enough. Win2k/XP again added another layer of backward compatibility to OS. And alas - they are successful.

There is a difference. M$ - marketing first. Apple? - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/stevejo bs173475.html :

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
        -- Steve Jobs

And then read official news for what Billg/management has to say (e.g. http://news.com.com/Is+Vistas+delay+good+for+the+i ndustry/2008-1016_3-6052768.html?tag=nl) and M$FT blogs for the position of the employees - http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fi re-leadership-now.html

M$ is primarily marketing body. While Apple's Jobs understands that it's engineers who are making products (without Jobs, Apple is no better than M$FT - just smaller). Good engineering == good products. There are many really great engineers at M$FT - but it's just they have no voice on what goes into products...

What Robert Fisk was claiming is that there would be a bloody battle in Baghdad, that the Iraqi forces were clearly ready to resist in the capital, and he had seen their careful preparations to defend the city. Sorry, it didn't quite work out that way.

You sound like you are relishing that prospect, which is pretty sad. Are you on the side of the insurgency?

Iraqis aren't, why are you?

Here's a nice summary of the situation on the ground.

I have read many similar stories, so I'm confident of its accuracy.

Whenever someone tells me the Iraq war was a rotten thing for the people, we bombed them to pieces, they really loved Saddam, etc, I could argue with my own opinions until I was blue in the face. Instead,
I send them the opinion of an ordinary Iraqi.

Have things changed in the long, hard years since then? Not a chance.

So if you think there is something romantic about the insurgency, or that they are the good guys, I hope you'll consider what I've shown you. No matter how much you hate the US military, we're still the good guys in Iraq, and the people are still overwhelmingly on our side:

Hope that helps.

D

What Robert Fisk was claiming is that there would be a bloody battle in Baghdad, that the Iraqi forces were clearly ready to resist in the capital, and he had seen their careful preparations to defend the city. Sorry, it didn't quite work out that way.

You sound like you are relishing that prospect, which is pretty sad. Are you on the side of the insurgency?

Iraqis aren't, why are you?

Here's a nice summary of the situation on the ground.

I have read many similar stories, so I'm confident of its accuracy.

Whenever someone tells me the Iraq war was a rotten thing for the people, we bombed them to pieces, they really loved Saddam, etc, I could argue with my own opinions until I was blue in the face. Instead,
I send them the opinion of an ordinary Iraqi.

Have things changed in the long, hard years since then? Not a chance.

So if you think there is something romantic about the insurgency, or that they are the good guys, I hope you'll consider what I've shown you. No matter how much you hate the US military, we're still the good guys in Iraq, and the people are still overwhelmingly on our side:

Hope that helps.

D

And INTERESTING stuff has come out. For example, ABC News found documents that seem to show that the Russian ambassador gave the US war plans to Iraq.

Individuals are looking too. Here is a link from an Iraq blogger who blogs from Baghdad. This document suggests that members of Al Qaeda met with Iraqi intelligence.

I just find it really cool that enterprising people can go in and look at ORIGINAL documents, and that we don't have to purely rely on what the government says they say. Pro-war, anti-war, historians, anyone can go in and look at what was going on inside Iraq.

"Linux violates our IP says Ballmer" Fri Mar 24, @02:24PM

recent submissions "Hilf benchmarks Linux" rejected Fri Mar 24, @06:14PM

"Bill Hilf benchmarks Linux"

Anybody who has ever done any probability calculations for the formation of even only the basic molecular structures in life forms quickly learns to write double and even triple digit exponents. Study the chlorophyll, hemoglobin or DNA data storage molecules and calculate the chances of any one of such functioning structures evolving by probability mechanisms. Measuring the age of the universe in nanoseconds will still yield numbers many orders of magnitude smaller than these calculations.

Here's a worthwhile question to consider, though: Why have you noticed this calculation but hordes of biochemists appear to have missed it? Do they just hate religion, or could it be something in their years of study that the average armchair physical chemist is missing?

Hulk smash!

Isn't that what Google already does, with their personal project time and whatnot?

I'm not sure what personal-project time has to do with having an internal ideas market, but Google does coincidentally have an internal prediction market, which they described in their official blog last year. From the description:

At Google, we're constantly trying to find new ways to organize the world's information, including information relevant to our business. Building on the ideas of Friedrich Hayek and the Iowa Electronic Markets, a few Googlers (Doug Banks, Patri Friedman, Ilya Kirnos, Piaw Na and me, with some help from Hal Varian), set up a predictive market system inside the company.

The markets were designed to forecast product launch dates, new office openings, and many other things of strategic importance to Google. So far, more than a thousand Googlers have bid on 146 events in 43 different subject areas (no payment is required to play).

We designed the market so that the price of an event should, in theory, reflect a consensus probability that the event will occur. To determine accuracy of the market, we looked at the connection between prices of events and the frequency with which they actually occurred. If prices are correct, events priced at 10 cents should occur about 10 percent of the time. ...

We also found that the market prices gave decisive, informative predictions in the sense that their predictive power increased as time passed and uncertainty was resolved. When a market first opens there may be considerable uncertainty about what will eventually happen; but as time goes on, some outcomes became more likely than others. The market prices should reflect this phenomenon, with the implied probability distributions becoming more concentrated over time. ...

Our search engine works well because it aggregates information dispersed across the web, and our internal predictive markets are based on the same principle: Googlers from across the company contribute knowledge and opinions which are aggregated into a forecast by the market. Sometimes, just feeling lucky isn't enough, and these tools can help.

We webloggers are collectively turning the World Wide Web into one superintelligent global brain.
Michael Anissimov
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Thomas Burick
Hal Daume III
David Heller
Marco Koch
Bob Mottram
J.M. Pratt
Eric Ringger
LM Squires
Ting Qian
Oliver Wrede

We webloggers are collectively turning the World Wide Web into one superintelligent global brain.
Michael Anissimov
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Thomas Burick
Hal Daume III
David Heller
Marco Koch
Bob Mottram
J.M. Pratt
Eric Ringger
LM Squires
Ting Qian
Oliver Wrede

We webloggers are collectively turning the World Wide Web into one superintelligent global brain.
Michael Anissimov
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Thomas Burick
Hal Daume III
David Heller
Marco Koch
Bob Mottram
J.M. Pratt
Eric Ringger
LM Squires
Ting Qian
Oliver Wrede

We webloggers are collectively turning the World Wide Web into one superintelligent global brain.
Michael Anissimov
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Thomas Burick
Hal Daume III
David Heller
Marco Koch
Bob Mottram
J.M. Pratt
Eric Ringger
LM Squires
Ting Qian
Oliver Wrede

We webloggers are collectively turning the World Wide Web into one superintelligent global brain.
Michael Anissimov
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Thomas Burick
Hal Daume III
David Heller
Marco Koch
Bob Mottram
J.M. Pratt
Eric Ringger
LM Squires
Ting Qian
Oliver Wrede

Want to see Vista ship?

Get rid of 90% of the Process that goes between writing the code and getting it checked in.... get rid of the process that has people working at 3AM on Sunday morning NOT to fix bugs, NOT to write features, NOT to make the product more stable, but only to move marbles from one coffee can to another coffee can....

Because that's where all the time is going, and that's why people working on Vista are closing their doors and literally weeping in frustration at their desks.