Slashdot Mirror

Wind pays off much faster, and is about 5x cheaper than PV to boot.

Wind pays off much faster, and is about 5x cheaper than PV to boot.

Ok lets say you're 24 years old. Forget the $5 per month and then invested the resulting monthly savings in an investment that earned 7.5% per year, between now and age 65, you would then be able to withdraw $153 from your investment each month...until you croak at 80!Then there is the service fee calculation that I did about a month ago.

which is to stabilize the relationship between currency and value. This deliberate stabilization is impossible in a gold standard economy (more precisely, there are too many players who can influence the quantity of currency in circulation in a gold standard economy to know who they are, let alone understand their motivations).

Rothbard doesn't really ask for a gold standard, per se, but a deregulated currency system -- which I support. In a gold standard, some players COULD horde all the gold, but this would cause prices to drop to cover this hording. This is a good thing, creating a supply and demand for money that can't be destroyed by government fiat or force. If someone wants to horde gold, they first have to acquire it. As they acquire and hold it, they're losing out in the short run generally as that gold is working for them.

All the gold standard buys you is less control.

Less control in what way? An ounce of gold today buys about the same thing that an ounce of gold did in 1800 and an ounce of gold in 0 AD. Gold tends to be stable, as currency should be, relative to consumer goods. Fiat paper currency always gets destroyed -- in every situation in history, fiat currency has bankrupted. The US dollar has only existed as fiat currency since 1913 (partial reserve banking creation), and was completely taken off of a reserve system in 1971 by Nixon. Our currency in 1800 compared to 1912 was nearly 1:1, from 1913 to now it is 20:1 -- $20 in 1913 is worth $1 today. In the past year the government has devalued our currency almost an additional 10% through excessive printing, how is this stable?

If the available interest rate of savings accounts is above the inflation rate, there is an incentive to save.

Yet the available interest rate is set by the same organization that prints the new paper currency! If interest rates were free market provided for, things might be different. Yet the same government that devalues our currency every week also sets the interest rate too long to instill a good savings rate.

I agree that bank regulation is to blame, but to describe a new set of regulations that provide for banks to make a profit on savings and to offer a competitive interest rate is beyond my limited knowledge of economics and monetary theory.

This is why I am a fan of private 100% reserve banking. Banks are meant to do two things: protect your real money (gold, silver, oxen, whatever), and offer you the chance to invest it safely in businesses they have researched and trust -- usually backed by assets. Today banks offer neither: your money devalues while they hold it, and they don't do a good job of investments (see the housing bubble and the stock market).

I have faith in Rothbard's words, and I live on a personal gold standard myself ( http://dadasays.blogspot.com/ ). My money is stable, and I don't fear stock market fluctuations, war, imperialism or a global loss of faith in the dollar. Is your future safe?

I see dead pixels

http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/03/in-world-with- infinite-storage.html

I find interesting the Lighthouse. What could be that??? Anyway very interesting read, especially regarding the transparent personalization.

I'm a little skeptical about blogging myself, and like you say, much/most of it isn't terribly original. However, I think that if there is some value to blogging, it probably comes from the selection and arrangement of the texts that bloggers choose.

I don't know what blogs you've been reading, but there are hundreds of original content blogs out there. I publish a weekly column at my blog about ADHD, Depression, etc. and how to deal with it - all original content. I scan dozens of original content blogs via RSS daily and I find more every week. None of them paste copy from elsewhere.

That's not to say that the regurgitators aren't out there. I just ignore them. Perhaps you've been following only tech blogs? They're notorious for being nothing more than PR, product announcement, and link hounds. Gets very boring after a while. When you venture out into niche topics you begin to encounter more original content, and I don't mean personal blogs where people contemplate their navel and discuss the fluff they pulled out of it this morning.

The trick is to find a blog with original content and then see who they link to. To streamline that use a site like http://technorati.com/ to search for specific topics. I just discovered artblogs this week. Some are better than others, but the ones that stand out are rewarding for me to read. Who knows what niche I'll discover next month. Blogging is exploding out away from the typical political and tech topics. It's rather exciting, IMO.

I agree that a lot of blogs aren't terribly original, but the one's that have value to me don't collage other people's content. I'd recommend digging deeper into blogs before dismissing them, and start by stepping away from the A-listers.

Atrios rightly points out that many many newspapers often pick up press releases and run them almost un-edited as content, and that it's been going on for a long time. The difference is that on the web such practices are much more easily exposed. "Much ado about nothing" indeed.

Atrios rightly points out that many many newspapers often pick up press releases and run them almost un-edited as content, and that it's been going on for a long time. The difference is that on the web such practices are much more easily exposed. "Much ado about nothing" indeed.

Unless I'm missing something this New York Times article is just another stab at holding bloggers to ethical standards and practices which don't apply anywhere else in the universe. The public relations industry existed long before bloggers came along and they had reporters' phone numbers long before they had the email addresses of bloggers. Barely edited press releases have long been published, especially at smaller newspapers. I get press releases and information from all over the place all the time. Obviously disclosure is a nice idea if there are any financial relationships, a practice not always followed by our hallowed 4th estate, but if people want to devote their blogs to throwing up Wal Mart press releases they're free.

The main reason stories like this are even written is that contrary to popular opinnion the internet often provides a lot more transparency even when there are efforts to hide it. Astroturfing operations of various kinds through all media are nothing new, they're just usually harder to track. If Wal Mart pays 50 people to call talk radio all day and extol its virtues would anyone know?

I'm not defending all astro turfing practices or its practitioners, and there are certainly ethical issues that can be raised. But "Wal Mart PR guy reaches out to bloggers" just isn't much of a story. PR people reach out to me all the time. So what.

Unless I'm missing something this New York Times article is just another stab at holding bloggers to ethical standards and practices which don't apply anywhere else in the universe. The public relations industry existed long before bloggers came along and they had reporters' phone numbers long before they had the email addresses of bloggers. Barely edited press releases have long been published, especially at smaller newspapers. I get press releases and information from all over the place all the time. Obviously disclosure is a nice idea if there are any financial relationships, a practice not always followed by our hallowed 4th estate, but if people want to devote their blogs to throwing up Wal Mart press releases they're free.

The main reason stories like this are even written is that contrary to popular opinnion the internet often provides a lot more transparency even when there are efforts to hide it. Astroturfing operations of various kinds through all media are nothing new, they're just usually harder to track. If Wal Mart pays 50 people to call talk radio all day and extol its virtues would anyone know?

I'm not defending all astro turfing practices or its practitioners, and there are certainly ethical issues that can be raised. But "Wal Mart PR guy reaches out to bloggers" just isn't much of a story. PR people reach out to me all the time. So what.

The bloggers mentioned in the story, who presumably are able to articulate their own opinions, received Wal*Mart email and began to simply copy the PR text into the blogs.

Wait, I don't understand. This is news? I thought it was common knowledge that a large portion of bloggers (the majority?) simply copy text from elsewhere as their "blog". Take Digg as an example. Digg integrates with many blogging services, allowing users to write commentary on the story, and link back to the Digg page from their blog. The feature is quite popular as most of the front page stories have a "blog" attached to them.

Now with such a feature, you would expect each blogger to provide insightful commentary on the issue at hand, right? Wrong. The majority of the blogs do nothing more than replicate the exact text from the Digg story. Not only are these blogs redundant, but they add another level of indirection to anyone who might happen upon them. ("Oh, so I go from blog, to Digg, to Link, right?") Ok, so the better blogs have a direct link AND a Digg link. But this is really nothing more than sydication of rather fluffy content.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

http://nik-hil.blogspot.com/
http://www.r00tware.com/
http://hackerslife.blogspot.com/
http://www.petesblog.com/

These are examples of "real" blogs with sydicated Digg content mixed in:

http://jacobsonster.blogspot.com/
http://howgoodisthis.wordpress.com/

Now these blogs aren't entirely without value. In many cases, it's a way of aligning your tastes with those of a particular blogger. i.e. That blogger only links to articles you want to know about. It's also good for the site that's being Dugg, as they have more links to their site.

But no, there's nothing magically articulate about bloggers. Plenty of them are happy to syndicate.

The bloggers mentioned in the story, who presumably are able to articulate their own opinions, received Wal*Mart email and began to simply copy the PR text into the blogs.

Wait, I don't understand. This is news? I thought it was common knowledge that a large portion of bloggers (the majority?) simply copy text from elsewhere as their "blog". Take Digg as an example. Digg integrates with many blogging services, allowing users to write commentary on the story, and link back to the Digg page from their blog. The feature is quite popular as most of the front page stories have a "blog" attached to them.

Now with such a feature, you would expect each blogger to provide insightful commentary on the issue at hand, right? Wrong. The majority of the blogs do nothing more than replicate the exact text from the Digg story. Not only are these blogs redundant, but they add another level of indirection to anyone who might happen upon them. ("Oh, so I go from blog, to Digg, to Link, right?") Ok, so the better blogs have a direct link AND a Digg link. But this is really nothing more than sydication of rather fluffy content.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

http://nik-hil.blogspot.com/
http://www.r00tware.com/
http://hackerslife.blogspot.com/
http://www.petesblog.com/

These are examples of "real" blogs with sydicated Digg content mixed in:

http://jacobsonster.blogspot.com/
http://howgoodisthis.wordpress.com/

Now these blogs aren't entirely without value. In many cases, it's a way of aligning your tastes with those of a particular blogger. i.e. That blogger only links to articles you want to know about. It's also good for the site that's being Dugg, as they have more links to their site.

But no, there's nothing magically articulate about bloggers. Plenty of them are happy to syndicate.

The bloggers mentioned in the story, who presumably are able to articulate their own opinions, received Wal*Mart email and began to simply copy the PR text into the blogs.

Wait, I don't understand. This is news? I thought it was common knowledge that a large portion of bloggers (the majority?) simply copy text from elsewhere as their "blog". Take Digg as an example. Digg integrates with many blogging services, allowing users to write commentary on the story, and link back to the Digg page from their blog. The feature is quite popular as most of the front page stories have a "blog" attached to them.

Now with such a feature, you would expect each blogger to provide insightful commentary on the issue at hand, right? Wrong. The majority of the blogs do nothing more than replicate the exact text from the Digg story. Not only are these blogs redundant, but they add another level of indirection to anyone who might happen upon them. ("Oh, so I go from blog, to Digg, to Link, right?") Ok, so the better blogs have a direct link AND a Digg link. But this is really nothing more than sydication of rather fluffy content.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

http://nik-hil.blogspot.com/
http://www.r00tware.com/
http://hackerslife.blogspot.com/
http://www.petesblog.com/

These are examples of "real" blogs with sydicated Digg content mixed in:

http://jacobsonster.blogspot.com/
http://howgoodisthis.wordpress.com/

Now these blogs aren't entirely without value. In many cases, it's a way of aligning your tastes with those of a particular blogger. i.e. That blogger only links to articles you want to know about. It's also good for the site that's being Dugg, as they have more links to their site.

But no, there's nothing magically articulate about bloggers. Plenty of them are happy to syndicate.

So move elsewhere. Or work to get someone else elected.

This country (the U.S.) was built around personal responsibility and freedom. Neither of your "answers" there cover either. Why should I move when I live in a country that is based on freedom? I'd rather see solutions to downsize the federal government and let the states adapt. I don't believe in democracy, so voting is counter-intuitive and against my morals, although I do vote.

I never drive, I only use the trains.

The trains by me are funded by force -- the average rider pays a few dollars, and the taxpayer pays almost $10 more to cover the bureaucracy of the trains. Many trains originally were privately run, but the cronies found ways to get government to foot the bill. I believe cars are way more efficient and cheaper once you factor in the true costs of the train system.

It doesn't tie in so well with government debt, you are conflating the NASA budget with Social Security, etc.

They both tie in together. People live beyond their means, so they don't want to save for the future. The government welfare programs are overbudget, so the government inflates the currency, pushing the costs onto future generations while robbing the current citizens of the value of their savings and investments.

One of NASA's roles is to create new markets -- for example, without NASA, there wouldn't be a market for commerical satellites.

I don't believe that at all. We went from the telegraph to the telephone, and I do believe that satellites would have naturally evolved in a competitive market. Of cousre, we'll never know, but I see most human invention coming out of a profit motive. NASA has a profit motive as well -- for the cronies who provide overpriced and inefficient contract work.

You and I tend to never agree, but I appreciate your opinion, FWIW.

on an Oracle affiliated site! Oh, it's very transparent and connects to well document studies, doesn't it? No? Anyways, we'll just take their word and say SAP's TCO is almost double that of Oracle's similiar offerings!? Similiar? Does anything from Oracle even stack up close to SAP's offerings? Nope! is the one word answer, no matter which camp you belong to, you cannot bring up a product that seamlessly brings together all aspects of a business as SAP does.

All the modules can be individually customized and presented to the customer for his choosing whenever he wants to use that part of the package.

No, it's not a battle royale, Fusion, never was and will never come close to where SAP is in the market today.

High Costs!?!

What's that, do you say a piece of code is costly just because it initially costs higher!?

Have you ever worked in a company where SAP was implemented, do some costing for such a company and then come back and post on the cost savings they've had in their departments after implementing SAP, yes a few implementations do go pear shaped but this is generally not the case.

I don't know about Zoellner's previous jobs but certainly can't find anything on google relating him to know anything that he claims to know about SAP.

(Disclaimer: I'm an SAP Tech. Consultant)
(home: http://alternateplanet.net/ )
(blog: http://alternateplanet.blogspot.com/ )

An a law isn't a law, if it has already been found to be unconstitutional. There is a body of SC precedent that holds that (1) anonymity is a protected free speech right,

You are certainly right that the precedents say such speech is protected. Talley v California, McIntyre v Ohio, ACLF, Watchtower v Stratton. Text at majors.blogspot.com
However, for 5 years I've been unable to find local counsel and a plaintiff to challenge New Jersey's existing bans on certain forms of anonymous speech, of the "vote for smith" variety.
And let's say I find them, and file suit, and win.
Next year the same idiot introduces another bill to do the same thing, and we start over. In theory, suits like that should generate enough legal fees to be self-funding. In practice, over the past ten years I've gone broke doing these - partly my own ineptness - and not been able to obtain the result of getting these rules blocked, or getting them to stop writing new unconstitutional rules.
Perhaps some form of more direct action would appropriate - anybody got this guy's home phone number and home address? We can all call to congratulate him on his fine bill, or mail him a coconut.

Most likely the projectionist never bothers to do a sound check at all. People absorb more sound than the typical movie theatre seat so with more people in the theatre you need more volume.

Poor projection quality has always been a problem but the last five times I went to the cinema there was a screw up every single time. The last time I went the projectionist had put an entire trailer in back to front. We must have been the fiftieth audience to see it but they hadn't bothered to fix it.

It is not unusual to go to see a baddly scratched print the week a film opens. Nobody bothers to splice the soundtrack properly so you get a huge bang when you come to the splices between reels.

The budgets of plenty of video games are in the movie class, the revenues are certainly larger. People are going to cinemas for a communal experience, why not an interactive experience? I blogged on this earlier.

The nuclear energy future is interesting, but frankly, few really understand the nuclear energy PRESENT. As may have been mentioned before, if Slashdot readers would like an entertaining inside look at nuclear power in the US today, they can checkout the novel "Rad Decision" at http://raddecision.blogspot.com./ It was written by a longtime engineer in the nuclear industry (me). There is NO COST to readers.

"I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read." - Stewart Brand, tech icon and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, who has called for a second look at nuclear energy.

Other comments from the homepage:
"The nuclear accident stuff is fast-paced, entertaining stuff."
"I started reading Rad Decision because of my interest in nuclear power -- then found I could not put it down!"
"Very nice, good pace. The tech was good but not overwhelming."

James Aach
jimaach@comcast.net

Sgt. Jake -- Good question. I made a response to a similar question here.

My anarcho-capitalism blog ( http://anarcap.blogspot.com/ ) will be covering the No Copyright topic in upcoming weeks, along with some debate at my forum. If you're interested in putting in your two cents, please check in there if interested.

I wish that there was a way to eliminate the editors entirely and put everything on autopilot. Let the readers choose the stories, let the readers decide what topics are important.

But this is an example of the good side of having editors. Usually Slashdot is non-stop pumping for open source. It is the Fox News or the Air America of Open Source software. There may have been a point to that stance in the 1990s. Today it gets a little tiresome.

I think that it is a mistake for Firefox to mention IE for the same reason that the Oscars presenters should not have mentioned the word DVD all night: running down the competition makes you look cheap and scared.

I never ever mention my competition in an interview. If I am asked a direct question I tell the interviewer the competitor will have to speak for themselves, then I bridge to the positive message I want to get out.

I regularly attend meetings with firefox developers and IE developers in the same room. You would be amazed at how well everyone gets on. If you talk to Linus or any of the people at the center of the successful OSS projects of the past ten years it is amazing how reasonable everyone is in an industry which does not exactly have a reputation for reasonableness.

There are well known ultras of course, but they tend not to write code. I can only think of one well known ultra who produced a significant body of code and that was a long time ago.

Ultras are a problem for every political movement. People think that the way to get attention is to be as extreme and as uncompromising as possible. If you are a libertarian, a leftie, an environmentalist you soon learn how easy it is to play that particular game.

Says who? Not this.

After all, do you really think Apple would have gone with this Intel graphics chip if they didn't think it was going to do the job?

Because thanks to the insanely overpriced Intel junk the new Mini is already far more expensive than the old one.

We have yet another reason to declare Open Season on the White House.

Without question, this is the only way to go:

Lego USB flash drive... that will give you near-infinite geek points (which can now be exchanged for frequent flier miles!) ;-)

I have no problem finding public terminals in libraries, friends houses and coffeeshops that I can boot from a USB key or a businesscard CD, so perversely don't take my laptop on the road. I could be rendered homeless tomorrow and my clients wouldn't notice. It's a barely perceptible but immensely powerful change in the world - net access isn't ubiquitous, but it can be found for free or at nominal cost just about anywhere in the developed (or even semi-developed) world, as easily found as a public restroom or a dumpster full of yesterday's bagels. People like the homeless guy are as much a part of the information age as the rest of us. That's world-changing stuff that no-one really notices.

Google understands this and created an Enterprise version that allows you control this... http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2006/02/searc h-across-enterprise-desktop.html

http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/02/blizzard-goin g-crazy-for-opteron.html

that's the link to the article, but here's the relevant quote:

"Blizzard is rumored to have purchased around 1500+ new HP servers all based on AMD Opteron 64 technology. This is most def the first time that Blizzard has purchased AMD based servers in bulk"

Is that personal enough for you?

So far the perps have been very willing to share attacks. Now that there is money to be made and they are in competition there is a good reason not to share new goodies. It is in the interests of the professional botherders to have lots of script kiddies doing idiotic attacks, being caught and prosecuted. I bet they would even write bots that report the operator to the FBI directly if we gave them the idea.

It is in our interest to reduce the script kiddie hackers to the minimum so we can go after the big time criminals. Wasting police time and resources is a crime in itself. If people waste police time doing silly crimes then they should not whine when they get the book thrown at them.

Mitnick asked for it, there are plenty of others who will get the Mitnick treatment before people get the message that hacking isn't cool any more and if we catch you we will make sure you go to jail for a long time and then ban you from using computers for so long during probation that your technical skills will be completely worthless.

The way I think we have to shut down the bots is reverse firewalls. Reduce the value of the bot itself to the attacker. That and follow the money.

The real botnet controllers are people. The DOJ has been arresting a few botherders recently, I blogged about this a week ago. I do not know how this is being done but I think its much more likely that they are following the money, not following the bits.

I still think that the way to bring bots under control is reverse firewalls. I am also interested in getting some sort of response scheme established so that people who are under attack can say so in a machine readable fashion.

That is why I beleive the mini will be a front end machine, or it will have to grow in size. It is not physically possible to put significantly larger drives in the mini. The mini uses 2.5 notebook drives, to get more than 80GB is VERY expensive in that form factor. A 500GB 3.5 drive costs about the same as a 160GB 2.5 drive.

Geeks have another option for getting that diskspace. Of course Apple could build and sell a similar product with the mini as a DVR package.

How about upgrading the windows version without leaving the old version number in the add/remove programs? I have to update 40 or 50 machines at a time and it's a pain uninstalling before installing.

This blog suggests that the issue your complaining about was fixed around a year ago.

Or perhaps I misunderstood your problem?

Should be http://bearingit.blogspot.com/ - but now returns a "404 - page not found" error :-(

BearingPoint is making business with Google now. Maybe using Blogspot wasn't the wisest choice after all... Too bad, I managed to read some of it two days ago and it was fun as hell :-D

A much better article on this subject was posted on the TaoSecurity web blog (http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2006/02/feds-dela y-checkpoint-acquisition-of.html) back on Feb 23rd. I put in an article about that the day after and it never ran. Now this article shows up and doesn't cover most of the basics.

Incidently, "On the Money" broke the story about the cell phone records for sale on the net. They did not drop the story until Congress took action. Kudos to them. Hopefully they do this on this topic as well.

Actually, John Aravosis broke the story on AmericaBlog. Linky Linky: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/anyone-can -buy-list-of-your-incoming.html

.... From what I've seen Wyden's pretty moderate, especially for his state (California's Canada), and seems to 'get' high-tech issues.

And yeah, in theory let the companies do stupid things and suffer, but there's a finite limit on the amount of infrastructure to deliver network service (safety/aesthetic, but also in terms of where you can put the plant) so arbitrating that should serve consumers' benefit first.

Of course, when Google starts its own NAPs (and offers content providers cheap crossconnect peering over ethernet by building those NAPs at large colos, as well as cheap but mandatory no-rate-limited connections to ISPs) and builds wireless-to-the-pole, wireless-to-the-phonebooth and/or wireless-to-the-walmart, this will be moot.

The round about with violence in video games comes and goes. What I find most fascinating are these two things;

1. No one ever complains about the "War" or "Military" based violence.

2. Pimps and Hookers take exception to a game in which violence towards the hookers is depicted.

So ask yourself this, where does the real problem with a violent video game exist?

note: you can find me at http://blackdoveninja.blogspot.com/

We have a rating system to help parents choose games which have content that is appropriate for children. Why do the games still find their way into the hands of children?

Why are we blaming video game violence for the increase in violence in youth? When violence has been a part of video games and TV for several Decades, just look at Looney Toon's.

What about Military based FPS games which are all the rage with 10 to 30 year olds? Ok the age range might be a bit of a streatch but you get the point. No one ever says a word about those, and the violence in these games is offten more graphic and more real than in games like GTA. The military games put you in "Real" places taking violent action against the "Enemy".

Why is it that no parent ever complains about these games? Where are the Pimps and Hookers in the fight against violence in video games on this one?

The blame does not lie with the game manufacturer, or the store that sells the game. The blame should lie exactly where it belongs, in the parent lap, for not taking the time to read the warning label or even the description of the game. Instead when little Billy wants to buy a game, and grabs the next incarnation of bloody violence they just throw it in the basket and head for the register. Never mind the face taht they never once sit down to see what Billy is watching on TV or playing on his XBox, PS2, or GameCube. Then when Billy turns into a Hooker murdering psycho with a machete, they wonder why.

It really all comes down to inattention on the part of the parents and no one else.

The blog that TFA refers to is here.

And LIBRARIES! And trains and planes and buses! And lobbies and waiting rooms! And museums and conservatories!

And just to get the flaming out of the way in one post: Hell, No, nobody has a "right" to use a cell phone PERIOD! It is a convenience and priviledge bestowed only recently by science. If your phone call is so important that it cannot wait, it's important enough that you need to step outside of the library when I'm reading, the theatre when I'm trying to listen to the show, the rides at the amusement park I'm trying to enjoy, the orgy where I'm trying to get my freak on*, the doctor's office when I'm trying to hear my kid's diagnosis, etc. Anybody who responds to say otherwise has some serious issues with polite society.

The public transportation is debatable. Maybe buses/trains/etc. could have a "no cell phone zone". Restaurants, too. My rule of thumb is, any place and time where it would be rude to have a loud, extended conversation with any other person in the room (such as when you'd be interrupting the person who is speaking, singing, or performing), then it's rude to use a cell phone.

PS No, I'm also not a "technophobe". I actually appreciate cell phones so much, I design wallpaper for them.

* no, I actually saw this happen at some private club, I think it was in Vegas.

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/

You might hate 'em, but it's fascinating stuff to read.

BearingIT is the blog in question. The guy really comes off like a whiny douche. He's complaining about the company even before he is hired!

Some people have been speculating that the choice of name is a nod to Robert Zubrin, whose Mars Direct plan has some parallels with NASA's new mission designs. From the blog of Chair Force Engineer:

The irony of it is that Ares was also the name of the booster in Robert Zubrin's proposed Mars mission, "Mars Direct." Further, Zubrin's Ares (publically unveiled in 1990) is almost the same as NASA's Ares-5, launched in 2005.

The differences between the Zubrin and NASA boosters are very subtle. Both are built from the Shuttle fuel tank and boosters, with an upper stage mounted axially on the vehicle.

The biggest difference is the propulsion arrangement. Zubrin used four stock shuttle engines (SSME's) mounted in a pod where the shuttle orbiter's tail would normally be. Theoretically, Zubrin's propulsion pod could re-enter the atmosphere and be recovered. Ares 5 goes to the more expensive step of designing a "low-cost, expendible SSME." The five engines are mounted axially underneath the hydrogen tank. While this is a more efficient arrangement, it requires more extensive modifications to the shuttle's launch pad.

There are other differences as well. Zubrin originally proposed using the now-moribund Advanced Solid Rocket Motors, while NASA goes with 5-segment SRB's. NASA stretches the shuttle's tank, while Zubrin uses the same volume of propellants on the first stage tank as the shuttle does. NASA has an 8.4 meter diameter upper stage (to match the first stage,) while Zubrin went to 10 meters for his (matching the Saturn V's diameter.)

An open question is the definition of "J-2X," the engine that will be used for the second stage of Ares I (The Stick) and Ares 5. While the engine is a modern replacement for the J-2 on the Saturn V's second and third stages, it's a mystery to me whether it will have any commonality with the old J-2 or J-2S. One wonders if the European Vulcain engine, fitted with a nozzle extension to compensate for upper atmospheric & vacuum conditions, would fit that bill. Of course, I smell the odor of "not invented here" creeping up on this idea.

While many groups of space enthusiasts have been disappointed with Project Constellation, Zubrin's Mars Society should not be one of them. Michael Griffin's NASA has joined Zubrin and his Zubrinistas, worshipping at the Church of Heavy-Lift.

Instead, we continue to have Microsoft ripoffs pushed in our face, while you're lucky to even hear about Elive in your lifetime, let alone get your hands on Elive in a timely fashion (they don't even have a server; it's bit-torrent or nothing!). So it boils down to that there are four - no wait - five things that have any affect at all on which system is the most used: marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and last but not least: marketing.

If I had the money and I was *that* bored (and starved for sick amusement), I could launch a massive media campaign combined with legal-industrial blitz to convince all of you that Tom's root/boot floppy was the best/most desirable system to run with the best features. And it would be bundled with every sold machine! The Internet would move back to Usenet and FTP! People would heckle you if you used anything else! What the hell would all of you public people know any different?????

Instead, we continue to have Microsoft ripoffs pushed in our face, while you're lucky to even hear about Elive in your lifetime, let alone get your hands on Elive in a timely fashion (they don't even have a server; it's bit-torrent or nothing!). So it boils down to that there are four - no wait - five things that have any affect at all on which system is the most used: marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and last but not least: marketing.

If I had the money and I was *that* bored (and starved for sick amusement), I could launch a massive media campaign combined with legal-industrial blitz to convince all of you that Tom's root/boot floppy was the best/most desirable system to run with the best features. And it would be bundled with every sold machine! The Internet would move back to Usenet and FTP! People would heckle you if you used anything else! What the hell would all of you public people know any different?????

Start wetting:

http://www.bootdisk.info/articles.php?action=cat&i d=7
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/liveusb.xml
http://frontier05.blogspot.com/2006/01/installing- ubuntu-to-external-usb.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2004/1 0/utility_to_make_usb_flash_driv.html
http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/


And, you can even buy a pre-loaded, live-USB stick:

http://damnsmalllinux.org/usb.html

These are all bootable OSs on removable drives... or did you mean bootable *Microsoft* OSs on removable drives? ... then, you're probably SOL.

I think we should hold that right-wing Egyptian paper accountable for brazenly publishing those anti-Muhammad cartoons during Ramadan. (specifically, 17 October 2005)

I think we should hold that right-wing Egyptian paper accountable for brazenly publishing those anti-Muhammad cartoons during Ramadan. (specifically, 17 October 2005)

It is sad that we have to commend people for thinking these days.

Ahh, see I just read google's official response to the DoJ request [shamelessly taken from this comment on the story you linked], it seems to outline technological and business concerns, not privacy ones.

Paraphrasing the five points about why they are rejecting the request: 1/ Trust searchers have in google, 2/ search records wont actually tell whether or not the infomation is harmful 3/ the request results would return information about proprietary google search algorithms 4/ 'undue burden' on google to return the results due to 'system architecture'.

What I was talking about are points 3. and 4. above: the search/correlation algorithms used by the data mining tools and heck even the data that they are collecting itself isn't exaclty known and how much data and how/where it is stored is also not something that the DoD is going to be releasing.

I wasn't talking about the "wholesale breach of privacy", but rather that using automated tools (like google's spider) you get queried data that might not be authorized (i.e. when the spider index'es a page with a malformed robots.txt) but due to the bulk of the data being collected and cross referenced, it has to be automated. it is just the nature of using automated tools.

There are lots of Iraqi bloggers. One of the best is the one known as Riverbend, at Baghdad Burning.