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I have a weblog. I don't use it to look for fame; I use it to communicate experiences with friends and family, with the added feature that others who want information about what it's like to have these experiences may read my weblog to do so.

I find it a lot more effective than getting on the phone with various family members and friends in different time zones and repeating the same stories over and over again. It allows those who are interested to find out what's going on when they want to, and allows me to communicate any updates when I want to.

And I agree, the word "blog" is annoying, and, as far as I can tell, purely a media construct. Back in the day, when I was doing game development, I used to post a monthly development log on progress on the game. (Unforutnately, it's been lost to the mists of time - even the Wayback Machine can't get to it :-(.) We called it "a development log." Why do new words have to be invented for something, especially when they are just the lazy contraction of existing words that work perfectly well?

everything but the main search engine is beta at google.

Well, not EVERYTHING.. Just the other day slashdot ran a story on the fact that the Google Toolbar has left Beta..

You also have a seriously warped view of history.

Leeches contributed to the Chrisitan domination of the planet??? For one thing, blood-letting in ancient societies was considered a cure, and while we've discovered that it may actually have some health benefits, it's certainly no cure. For another, the use of leeches has arisen again in some very specialized cases, because their "technology", created by millions of years of evolution, for handling clotting problems, is better than ours.

As far as the decline of Rome goes, you're explanation is laughable. The marriage laws were about class distinctions. Augustus was worried that the lower classes would outnumber the "nobler" classes and was trying to encourage legitimate children in the upper classes.

Finally, ID explains nothing, which is why it has no business in a science class. Yeah, spend a day or two on it in a philosophy class, but it has no predictive power (unlike evolution, see this discussion on some misunderstandings about progress), it's merely naysaying.

Read this link to know why http://infoligence.blogspot.com/

i can tell you right now that if you value your happiness less than you value the floaters you flush down the toilet, we welcome you to apply for employment at State Farm Insurance! We employ all the latest technologies, and all the oldest structures and procedures internally, to make sure that no one ever goes home with a smile on their face. the procedures will make you cry! the number of meetings you have per day often exceeds 7! fuck deadlines, I have 9 hours of mandatory meetings on my 8 hour day! YAY! like spending 75% of your non-meeting time recording your hours, documenting, and doing code reviews so that everyone else can tell you what you did WRONG, come work for state farm!

We'll have you smiling on payday (but never any other day) very quickly! the work sucks! the environment sucks! the stressload and workload are more than any single person should ever handle! but the pay is kinda good!

So yes! work for state farm! You'll have 6 bosses like me! You'll witness others do nothing for YEARS before they're found out, and when they're found out, they're reassigned (with the mostly-mandatory raise that goes with any organization moves!)

we have people here leaving to go into CONSTRUCTION because its more rewarding. we have people living here to go into poverty because it is more rewarding (not kidding). we have people leaving here to work in customer service because there aren't as many headaches. in other words, the only reason to stay is the decent money. and the money is only decent if you live in bloomington, this money wouldn't fly in any civilized area of the country.

people do their jobs here, and for the most part they do them well, but every single one of them hates their jobs. every single one of them, including me.

so. if you value your money more than your happiness, come work for state farm. All we have to lure you in is money, because the benefits suck more and more each year, and the processes we must endure make even the most stress-free person seek therapy. The dilbert universe *10, in living color.

maybe I should start mini-statefarm (similar to this), a website that just totally fucking hozes management there and makes them as mad at me as i am at them.

I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.

Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset I had in my pocket.

When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.

I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/

I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.

Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset I had in my pocket.

When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.

I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/

I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.

Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset I had in my pocket.

When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.

I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/

I'm glad I did too! The line soon exceeded the 200 people that were guaranteed to get autographs. By morning it went around the block. The entire night people were playing DS and GBA games out on the sidewalk and good gaming discussions flowed like wine.

Others came prepared with lawn chairs and blankets, but my daughter and I had nothing but the clothes on our back and a few games. People brought all kinds of cool stuff to have signed. I saw, an original NES, the original Zelda cartridge, a power glove, even the front piece of monitor glass on a Donkey Kong arcade game. One gentleman from Canada a few spots ahead of me in line brought a photograph of him as a child opening his first NES as a Christmas present to have Miyamoto sign it. I had him sign the NES Bluetooth Handset I had in my pocket.

When all was said and done, the evening was a great success. I was #31 in line but still managed to download Miyamoto's Nintendog he was sharing to the first 10 people. I got my handset signed (I even got a picture of Miymoto talking on it)and my daughter got her DS signed. We got special DS skins. We met Reggie and a bunch of cool gamers in line.

I have a bunch of pics up from the evening. Check them out.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/

dammit... ghetto 360 camera source link

Cue Lady Bracknell imitations throughout offices the world over.

Weirdly Lady Bracknell is still alive and has her own blog!

The rules of business apply even to monopolies. MS, as people have seen, is starting to become stagnant in the areas of innovation and they've been slowly losing talent to competitors like google. There is dissention in the MS community and everyone knows it. The rules of the market apply to even monopolies.

I bet the only reason MS is doing this is because they fully expect Google to go the same direction. Competition isn't a bad thing people. And this proves yet again that the market, given enough time, will correct itself in the end.

All rail, monorail etc services share a fundamental problem which makes them largely useless to 90% of the population. They try to move groups of people from A -> B -> C -> D ..... -> Z. The automobile in comparison moves individuals directly from A -> Z.

The implications are quite significant for the difference in method. Group vehicles have to be large, heavy to carry lots of people, the infrastructure then has to be large, heavy and expensive per mile. Group vehicles have to stop at every station to let people on and off. Very slow average speed. Group vehicles almost never take you exactly where you want to go, you have to change to other modes of transport and make additional journeys which means additional waits, very poor journey performance. Group vehicles have to run to a schedule. Everyone wants to travel at different times and schedules mean additional waits.

The result is that group vehicles have dismal performance. Which people are unwilling to pay for because it's so poor. They then have to be massively subsidised through taxation. Their optimal journey is from A->B with no stops in between. i.e. long distance, they shouldn't really be used for short journeys at all, they are being misused if they are.

More details of why conventional mass transit can't work and what can:
http://mrprecision.blogspot.com/2005/05/why-public -transport-cant-work.html

Welcome to last week! It's not even the top item on Google's blog anymore: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

I have DirecTV, and my service only goes out two or three times a year, and only because of weird atmospheric interference, and only for twenty minutes or so. I've had rain, snow, and wind. Hell, I even had service during a tropical storm that managed to survive until it reached Atlanta. I remember one night, the wind and rain got so bad that my power went out around 10 minutes before the end of Survivor, and because I have a UPS, I was still able to watch the end of it and see who got voted out.

Maybe your dish isn't aligned correctly. I set my own dish up, and on a clear day, my signal strength is a steady 100%. My dad complained about his service going out, and when I checked his signal strength on a clear day, it was only around 80%, thanks to an installation company that settled for "good enough." I adjusted his dish, and he didn't have much trouble after that.

But when I had cable, the damn thing was out at least once or twice a month. Once, I went three whole days without service. IIRC, someone cut the cable while doing construction, and somehow my box got deactivated, and it totally blew their minds. That kind of thing has never happened with my satellite service.

In spite of all of that, I recently tried cable again, because I can get HDTV from Comcast for a lot less than with DirecTV. I had it taken out after less than a week of service because of several insurmountable problems. Needless to say, I won't make that mistake again.

The show was definitely ahead of its time. The writing was brilliant. The acting was brilliant. The story arcs were compelling. It also rewarded the viewer who kept his brain in gear - such as the plague scene you mention. We all see Frank's wife leave the cabin - and that's it. We do not need to see her die because we know she has died. Brilliant directing.

http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/

There are a few in use currently in Iraq. There is the Talon which can fire many different weapons (M249, .50 cal, M4A1, M24, etc). They are very accurate, more accurate than any soldier. Every EOD team seems to have one of these which they use to detonate IEDs.

UAVs are everywhere and are common place in almost all operations. There is the Predator, which when armed with the hellfire missile system can be very leathal and the little Raven which can be utilized at the squad level. The new Viper Strike bombs, which are starting to be depoyed on UAVs, are very usefull in urban situations where you need to take out the enemy without harming innocents in say, the next room. This is a big development because the "insurgents" like to take shelter in mosques, schools, and hospitals, etc. The new Hardstop bombs help in this situation as well (but I do not think they are carried by UAVs). Anyways, here is an exellent video/story which mixes captured enemy video with the video from the UAV which nails them. I love UAVs.

From scovetta.blogspot.com:

50. 'Earth - Final Conflict'
49. 'The Wild Wild West'
48. '3rd Rock From The Sun'
47. 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'
46. 'That Was Then'
45. 'The Greatest American Hero'
44. 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'
43. 'Nowhere Man'
42. 'Science Fiction Theatre'
41. 'Futurama'
40. 'The Thunderbirds'
39. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'
38. 'Batman'
37. 'Space 1999'
36. 'The Bionic Woman'
35. 'Battlestar Galactica' (Original)
34. 'The Avengers'
33. 'Lost In Space'
32. 'My Favorite Martian'
31. 'Alien Nation'
30. 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
29. 'The Six Million Dollar Man'
28. 'Adventures of Superman'
27. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
26. 'Stargate Atlantis'
25. 'The Jetsons'
24. 'Wonder Woman'
23. 'Tales from the Crypt'
22. 'Andromeda'
21. 'Quantum Leap'
20. 'The Hitchhiker'
19. 'Dark Angel'
18. 'V'
17. 'Firefly'
16. 'Flash Gordon'
15. 'Logan's Run'
14. 'Star Trek Voyager'
13. 'The Outer Limits'
12. 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
11. 'Lost'
10. 'Sliders'
9. 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'
8. 'Dr. Who'
7. 'The Twilight Zone'
6. 'Stargate SG-1'
5. 'Babylon 5'
4. 'The X-Files'
3. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
2. 'Battlestar Galactica' (New)
1. 'Star Trek' (Original)

I did read a large part of the discussion. ... I grant you planes are harder but how much do you need to know to drive a car for example?

You're either lying or fooling yourself. The car analogy was discussed IN DETAIL in the thread. We discussed that to drive a car, you have to understand the keyed ignition, the tramission shifter, the accelerator, the brake, the fuel gauge, and the speedometer just to pull out of the drive! If you plan on driving for more than a short period, you also need to understand the fuel tank, the gasoline octanes (so you don't overpay), the range of your vehicle (so you don't get stranded), the mantenence schedule (so you don't send a piston through the empty oil pan), the rules of the road, headlights for darkness, etc, etc, etc. There is a LOT to driving a car! We just don't think about it because a) we grew up with them b) we had special training before we were allowed to use them.

Two posts stick out in my mind from the thread. One is from a fellow who's never driven or used a car. To him, even using the key in an ignition is a foreign concept. The other post was from a fellow who's sister dragged the Windows/system folder into the trash can then complained she didn't want to understand it, she just wanted to use it! (He likened this to smashing your foot on the accelerator and driving around at 60MPH in first gear. Apt analogy. It's good to understand things.)

Now lets look at computing. Every OS is different...very very different for some. The amount you need to know is incredible because things that should work don't.

Again, if you'd paid attention, you'd know that I already said that the current complexity shouldn't be so. I likened computers today to the early days of cars when you had to manually crank the car, all cars were manual, you had to top off the battery yourself, flush the radiator, change the transmission fluid, rotate the tires, and perform a wide range of emergency repairs. Cars didn't get truly easy to manage until the 80's and 90's.

Again, all I'm asking is that users have a basic knowledge of the metrics their using when they operate their computer. You don't bake cookies without knowing your metrics, and you sure as hell shouldn't be operating a computer without knowing them. And this comes from a guy who pissed off the Linux community by calling for a simpler interface! I even delivered a scathing rebuttal to a fellow who thinks new Linux users need to "read the manual first".

Basic knowledge is a very easy thing to come by. The extents that people will go through to EXPLICITLY not learn basic knowledge about a computer ("I don't want to understand it, I just want to use it!") is just astounding.

But I think you already realise all this and simply don't care. As far as you're concerned people who don't like it can get stuffed.

Just so AMAZINGLY easy to smack that reply button and flame, isn't it?

I did read a large part of the discussion. ... I grant you planes are harder but how much do you need to know to drive a car for example?

You're either lying or fooling yourself. The car analogy was discussed IN DETAIL in the thread. We discussed that to drive a car, you have to understand the keyed ignition, the tramission shifter, the accelerator, the brake, the fuel gauge, and the speedometer just to pull out of the drive! If you plan on driving for more than a short period, you also need to understand the fuel tank, the gasoline octanes (so you don't overpay), the range of your vehicle (so you don't get stranded), the mantenence schedule (so you don't send a piston through the empty oil pan), the rules of the road, headlights for darkness, etc, etc, etc. There is a LOT to driving a car! We just don't think about it because a) we grew up with them b) we had special training before we were allowed to use them.

Two posts stick out in my mind from the thread. One is from a fellow who's never driven or used a car. To him, even using the key in an ignition is a foreign concept. The other post was from a fellow who's sister dragged the Windows/system folder into the trash can then complained she didn't want to understand it, she just wanted to use it! (He likened this to smashing your foot on the accelerator and driving around at 60MPH in first gear. Apt analogy. It's good to understand things.)

Now lets look at computing. Every OS is different...very very different for some. The amount you need to know is incredible because things that should work don't.

Again, if you'd paid attention, you'd know that I already said that the current complexity shouldn't be so. I likened computers today to the early days of cars when you had to manually crank the car, all cars were manual, you had to top off the battery yourself, flush the radiator, change the transmission fluid, rotate the tires, and perform a wide range of emergency repairs. Cars didn't get truly easy to manage until the 80's and 90's.

Again, all I'm asking is that users have a basic knowledge of the metrics their using when they operate their computer. You don't bake cookies without knowing your metrics, and you sure as hell shouldn't be operating a computer without knowing them. And this comes from a guy who pissed off the Linux community by calling for a simpler interface! I even delivered a scathing rebuttal to a fellow who thinks new Linux users need to "read the manual first".

Basic knowledge is a very easy thing to come by. The extents that people will go through to EXPLICITLY not learn basic knowledge about a computer ("I don't want to understand it, I just want to use it!") is just astounding.

But I think you already realise all this and simply don't care. As far as you're concerned people who don't like it can get stuffed.

Just so AMAZINGLY easy to smack that reply button and flame, isn't it?

Gosh this sounds like SO much fun =) Puts a whole new meaning to Phreaking...

...and yes, I do agree, I'll call you back - my phone just crashed =)

- Trisha
http://spreadingthought.blogspot.com/

I sent this to the idiot author:

Good evening Walter =)

You're probably expecting a 'you're wrong' from a Gmail user. Not so =)

I do agree, the new Yahoo interface allows for more windows-like usability, however, this is why it will not be as widely used. Nowadays we're having trouble explaining to our parents the concept of folders - but our parents are on their way out, they're not the next generation. I am in the middle of Gen-X, and I took quite well to Gmail - in fact it was rather natural. About 12 hours ago I first signed up for this account, knowing absolutely nothing about it except its popularity, and I've already taken advantage of every single feature. With KDE now available in Macintosh, it is only a matter of time before a larger population understands the power of environment flexibility, and can take themselves away from the Gates of Grandeur (also known as the Bill Gates Monopoly).

So you're right. Beta Yahoo does act just like Outlook, and Google is arrogant about Gmail. With your attachment to the Bill Bottle, I wonder if you've even ever experienced KDE.

Agreeably Yours,
Trisha
--
http://spreadingthought.blogspot.com/

I just bought an SD/MMC card based MP3 player (information and pictures here). When I opened it up, I was amazed how small the actual circuit board was, though bigger than the Nano. But I now have an SD/MMC card reader and USB thumb drive as well as an MP3 player all in one.

I have some ideas on this in my blog http://goolocalizations.blogspot.com/, in the 'Googler' section. Hope someone at Google will take note.

It totally reminds me of this fanatsy blog I read all the time. anyway, I know it's a bit of a different subject, but the intention seems to be the same.

The web is an infrastructure that lets our individual machines communicate with one another. I very much doubt the web will be a viable platform anytime soon, for bandwidth reasons if nothing else.

You might want to recheck that. It's been done before, and it will be done again. (Use test:test for user/pass.)

I think that the term for those folks is "useful idiots." Concerning the whole "campaign finance reform" movement, this article is of interest; basically it was a huge astroturf campaign.

Here's a brief editorial by the FEC Commissioner explaining her stance. It's from March, but it still gives some perspective on ehat they're doing, and it seems like she is still saying that there will be no disclosure requirements on bloggers themselves.

Well, I guess it contains both Windows and Linux in the same phrase, so it must be news! Actually, it really should contain Google in it somewhere...we should really be posting a summary of every Google Blog post.

Let's not forget the Religious Policeman blog, critical of the Saudi regime and its religious police. The anonymous blogger responsible for this site had to lay low for the last year when it was getting too risky for him, but ultimately moved to the U.K. where he can post more freely, and started up again recently. It's a very interesting read (with a lot of humor too), especially the older archived posts. It's dedicated to the Saudi schoolgirls who were killed in a fire when they weren't allowed to flee their dormitory without being appropriately attired.

I don't know how you got ahold of a Nano board.. I think it's been almost two years since VIA announced them, and continually pushed back the release date. I long ago gave up on any plans I had for the Nano.

But, you're right, the MPEG2 decoder in the CN400 would make a great MythTV frontend. If the Nano ever sees the light of day, and the mythtv compatibility seems good, I might pick one up.

It's a damn shame Apple doesn't open APIs to their MPEG2 acceleration in the Radeon display chip in the Mac Mini. It would also make an excellent HD MythTV frontend. But, lacking that iDCT offload, the Mini is not fast enough for HDTV.

Another really interesting option is the MythTV frontend port to the Roku Photobridge HD. It's a cheap HD media player, with a hardware MPEG2 decoder.
http://mythroku.blogspot.com/

There have been similar previews for KDE 3.5 as well. These were even featured on Slashdot.

There have been similar previews for KDE 3.5 as well. These were even featured on Slashdot.

I also can't imagine that any of the clicks the advertisers get are legit. It's probably mostly accidental clicks as people are navigating around.

Of course, the best thing would be to encourage people to make their sites a little more user-friendly with more than a few words of text on each page. But barring that, some form of ad blocker that finds and kills these things would be a good idea. Maybe someone can write one for Firefox and Internet Explorer?

I also can't imagine that any of the clicks the advertisers get are legit. It's probably mostly accidental clicks as people are navigating around.

Of course, the best thing would be to encourage people to make their sites a little more user-friendly with more than a few words of text on each page. But barring that, some form of ad blocker that finds and kills these things would be a good idea. Maybe someone can write one for Firefox and Internet Explorer?

here are some domains that google has registered for googletv...

googletv.com
googletelevision.net
googlehd.net
googlehdtv.net
googlehidef.com
googlehighdefinition.com

found this at http://googleaddiction.blogspot.com/2005/09/google tv-in-works.html

here you are:

http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/22-06-05.htm l
http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/14-07-05.htm l
http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/17-08-05.htm l
http://jrepin.blogspot.com/2005/07/jlps-kde-35-pre views-part-1.html
http://jrepin.blogspot.com/2005/08/jlps-kde-35-pre views-part-2.html
http://edu.kde.org/development/3.5improvements.php
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde- 3.5-features.html

the complete changelog, along with a tour of all the new features, will be only in the announcement of the final release. this is a beta, it's only for testing!

here you are:

http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/22-06-05.htm l
http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/14-07-05.htm l
http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/17-08-05.htm l
http://jrepin.blogspot.com/2005/07/jlps-kde-35-pre views-part-1.html
http://jrepin.blogspot.com/2005/08/jlps-kde-35-pre views-part-2.html
http://edu.kde.org/development/3.5improvements.php
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde- 3.5-features.html

the complete changelog, along with a tour of all the new features, will be only in the announcement of the final release. this is a beta, it's only for testing!

Seems s/he is doing it for other blogs as well, but here is one of the "track backs" I saw:

http://triathalonbike.blogspot.com/2005/08/heavy-s tuff.html

Really, no idea why they are doing this.

http://unfair-and-unbalanced.blogspot.com/

First, I should disclose that my blog, The Splintered Mind, deals with personal issues and is often a form of therapy, though I like to believe that others may find the entries entertaining, useful, and sometimes even funny (even if unintentionally). Certainly the comments I receive from time to time reflect that.

That being said, I don't know how applicable the results of this poll are to blogging in general. I read an awful lot of political and technology blogs and not a single one of them is on AOL. In fact, considering that the poll was conducted for AOL on AOL from AOL users are we surprised that the majority of AOL "bloggers" blog about anything, read other blogs for entertainment, and don't rate politics or technology high in their answers?

I take issue with the poll participants being referred to as "US Bloggers" and not "AOL Bloggers". I don't believe the poll results represent the blogging mainstream at all. In fact, wouldn't the results differ depending on which blogging service was being polled? Wouldn't we see results like

"Subjects that LiveJournal Bloggers write about: Sexual Fantasies 55%, Creative Piercings 31%, Role Playing 15%, etc."

or

"Subjects that Blogger Bloggers write about: Spam 65%, Cats 23%, Auto Insurance 9%, etc."

OK, I'm kidding. But the pollsters are quite arrogant to declare their results speak for all bloggers in the United States of America.

Anyway, just another software dev's 2 bits worth.

-D. Philippe

What? You mean like this ex-escort girl blogging about her life as a prostitute (in swedish)
http://marinas-hideout.blogspot.com/

Excelent reading if you ask me :)

Blogging is the cheapest way to get some "head laundering". Why pay shrinks to talk about one's personal longings and anxieties? Simply register with a free blog account and pound your keyboard and your anxieties away.

My fellow Slashdotters ought to understand this sentiment -- as we crank out these comments, we are venting, and therefore undergoing some form of self-therapy, and it doesn't cost a dime. What bloggers do is very similar to what the commentators in this space do. I write about movies on one of my two blogs (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/) and post news items on the other (http://sundroid.blogspot.com/), and the expensive shrinks of the world cry a little.

Blogging is the cheapest way to get some "head laundering". Why pay shrinks to talk about one's personal longings and anxieties? Simply register with a free blog account and pound your keyboard and your anxieties away.

My fellow Slashdotters ought to understand this sentiment -- as we crank out these comments, we are venting, and therefore undergoing some form of self-therapy, and it doesn't cost a dime. What bloggers do is very similar to what the commentators in this space do. I write about movies on one of my two blogs (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/) and post news items on the other (http://sundroid.blogspot.com/), and the expensive shrinks of the world cry a little.

Base Price: $4,589.00

Holy CRAP that's expensive! And that's (apparently) without the monitor! If I may suggest, you should be able to build the same machine for about half the price, perhaps a bit more.

Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4

Sweet! They chose my favorite board! I have the A8N-E board (same thing, but only one Vid card) and I must say that it is a VERY nice board. Practically everything you could ever want is built in. NForce4 chipset, Gigabit ethernet, PCI Express, 8 channel audio, 10 USB ports, hardware firewall, hardware RAID support, 4 SATA-300 (aka SATA-II) connectors, IDE support, nearly all AMD64 chips supported, etc. I haven't found a better board, especially in that price range!

Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum INT Drive Sound

Can anyone explain what is up with this? The board comes with 8 channel sound built in. What do you need a separate sound card for? Is the sound quality really that much better?

BTW, if you get the A8N board, don't get the ASUS Star ICE. I've got one of those things and I'm now using it as a desk ornament. I just wanted an extra fan to keep things cool. I had no idea that I'd get a friggin' JET ENGINE! (I'm not kidding either. This thing can barely fit in the case when installed.) It gets great comments from my coworkers though. "What the HELL is that!?" ;-)

If you don't believe me on its size (no one ever does) just look at this pic.

In addition, you can choose how much of your book a user will be able to view over a 30 day period, from 20% of your content up to 100%. Portions of your book will be available to all interested users, but those users wanting to browse additional pages must sign in with their Google Account to view the full pages. (They will still be restricted to the percentage of the book you choose to make available.)

Let's be clear: Google doesn't show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program (unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more).

iTunes exec tells Jamaican artists to take a hike

http://jamaica-jamaica.blogspot.com/

and there is no obvious way to opt out of Google's scanning program

Seriously, take two seconds to click the links in the articles before saying something stupid. From the (only) other link in the slashdot blurb:

We regret that this group chose to sue us over a program that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world -- especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program.

Now if you can spare the time to click exclude, and read #3, you'll see that it is not only possible, but they don't even make you jump through hoops.

I think that is what Google is claiming in their blog response