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Ironically, I just ran across this post which speaks directly to the root causes of terrorism. If the US hadn't been meddling in the Middle East--support of the brutal Shaw of Iran, for example.

"We have a duty, through government, to prevent our national companies from doing significant harm as part of their business plan, and I think shareholders should also have the right, if not the duty, to put pressure on the company they own to also act in a more socially responsible way."

What a quaint idea, only there is no such thing as "our national companies" anymore. Most multinationals are approaching stateless entities. Many are moving headquarters to offshore havens with tax codes and regulation friendly to big corporations. If government really tried to pressure any of them out of China they could easily do the same and wave goodby to the U.S. as their home base.

John Chambers, Cisco's CEO, has given some infamous speeches where he has declared Cisco is becoming a "Chinese company". Some excerpts. So if you want to argue what nation Cisco belongs to they may have already seceeded from the U.S. and raised their flag in Beijing.

In the case of Cisco, if you read the link above you see China is the one dicatating to Cisco what to do, not the U.S. government.

The other obvious fact is most of the big multinationals are so powerful, and have such massive influence on the politicians and bureaucrats that run the U.S. government, its much more a case where they are pressuring the government and dictating to it on how to treat China, not vice versa. In particular they are demanding the U.S. throw open American markets to Chinese goods (same for NAFTA and CAFTA nations) because there is short term profit in it for those multinationals because they help make and sell those goods, and especially because they want the cheap labor, no environmental regulation etc. They are in most respects dictating to the U.S. government a policy towards China that is already very detrimental and could eventually be devestating to the U.S. economy. The U.S economy simply can't sustain half trillion dollar, and exploding, deficits. If the U.S. government were acting in the interest of the people and the long term health of the U.S. as a nation it would be erecting trade barriers, raising tariffs on Chinese goods, and withdrawing most favored status. Instead the government is collapsing barriers to Chinese goods and Chinese investment in the U.S. at the same time the Chinese maintain MASSIVE barriers to U.S. goods being sold in China and U.S. companies doing business there. In particular the only way U.S. companies get a foothold in China is they must partner with Chinese companies and usually transfer IP and markets to them to gain that entry, IBM's sale to Lenovo being the classic example.

Now shareholders certainly do have a right to dictate the direction of the corporation but ONLY if they can muster enough votes to dictate that direction. Shareholder pressure certainly has dictated corprate responsibility in the past on places like South Africa. But China is a LOT bigger economic prize than South Africa. For all the socially responsible investors that might want to get a company out of China, there are probably as many or more that want to dive in head first because there are potentially large profits to be made there, if they pass on them some competitor will reap them. Unfortunately in free markets, free markets get to decide which side wins in the end. Profits almost always win out over social responsibility. South Africa was was an exception because it wasn't that important to most companies, and being associated with it did cut in to their profits because it was such a pariah. Cisco is betting its entire future in China so it wont cut China loose without a major fight in the boardroom and shareholder's meeting.

I think I have to agree with this article somewhat it seems the new model could work. http://a100wwe.blogspot.com/2005/07/is-microsoft-f uture-of-open-source.html

I have a counter theory, which I explain at some length here. To sum it up, Comcast and the mobile phone companies won't want to buy Skype any more than the telecoms. It will be either Intel or Microsoft.

Why? Click the link.

For what it's worth, the Internet Archive has at least at one point in its history collected Usenet posts. This isn't in the Wayback machine, though.

http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#The_Wayback_ Machine

Do you archive email? Chat?

No, we do not collect or archive chat systems or personal email messages that have not been posted to Usenet bulletin boards or publicly accessible online message boards.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu / blog / pics

Where do you think the people from the record companies and particually their kids go to download music? Based on what a few friends in the industry have told me coffee shops are sort of a safehouse and this is a very common practice for the younger people in the biz. They just can't risk it at home or the officeor they will lose their job not just the $3000 settlement. Steamboat Springs

That's exactly what I was thinking. Me thinks he should go read Linux From Scratch, then follow up with a few books on Linux Design and Programming.

I had a sitdown with GamerDad a little while back, covering parents, gamers and ESRB:

http://cathodetan.blogspot.com/2005/07/interview-w ith-gamerdad.html

The Spread firefox community has helped to develop firefox download counters which can track the exact number of downloads in real time.

I read the same book and he can't even manage to spell the word "Steganography". He spells it "StenaNography". Of course if you Google the latter you'll get hits, but that, as this guy will attest, is Deaver's fault...

I don't understand the fuss over apple's decision to move to intel. Half the apple geeks/users out there don't even know the difference between RISC and CISC and could'nt differentiate the power pc from the pentium anyway. I have been an intel geek all my life and have just bought the powerpc ibook, not because it had the powerpc in it, but because it ran OS X. I'm sure most of the apple geeks like me only care about OS X.

--
http://sharninder.blogspot.com/

DaHat, the author of this story, hates linux.

-Dan tdaxp

First off, we expect that packages that are pairwise compatible, will be compatible in every combination.

If only it were that simple. Let's say that we have Mozilla, Java, and a package that can "glue" Java to other programs. Independently, Mozilla and Java work fine. Together they work fine. Each works fine with the glue package. But if something is screwed up in the glue package, Mozilla, Java, and the glue may no longer function when together. Even more distirbing is Mozilla plugins that step on each other and screw up packages that were working fine before.

Guidelines can help. That's the only reason why things work in the first place. But they don't guarantee, I'm afraid.

Linux won't get better from more stupid people using it. It will get better from more smart users, and those are very well capable of editing their config files.

That's simply insane. People got out of the business of doing all but the most basic car maintenence YEARS ago. People got out of the business of managing all but the most basic computer tasks YEARS ago. Now you want to send them back to the "Edit your Autoexec.bat/System.ini/Win.ini/Config.sys" hell? WHY?

It has nothing to do with people being stupid. It has everything to do with people having better things to focus on. If I'm a musician, I just want to install a program that lets me read and create sheet music. If you can make that one-click, GREAT! I really don't need to know, want to know, or should be expected to know how to do complex system management!

The traditional answer to any request is "okay, go and implement it yourself". Most people are incapable of doing that. The others will cater to their own needs. Such is life.

If that is the answer, then Linux will never achieve the Desktop market penetration that the community CLAIMS it wants. There can't be two ways about this. Either we're going to support end users or we're not. It doesn't matter if it's a new distro specifically designed for end users. We just have to support them.

Right now I think you're confused on so many accounts that I'd have to decline

There's no confusion here, only opinions. While they may differ, I see no reason to insult each other over them.

Look, here's my ideas laid out in four parts, and here's a two part followup that provides more details. If you want to join, send me an email. If you don't, then don't. No skin off my nose.

First off, we expect that packages that are pairwise compatible, will be compatible in every combination.

If only it were that simple. Let's say that we have Mozilla, Java, and a package that can "glue" Java to other programs. Independently, Mozilla and Java work fine. Together they work fine. Each works fine with the glue package. But if something is screwed up in the glue package, Mozilla, Java, and the glue may no longer function when together. Even more distirbing is Mozilla plugins that step on each other and screw up packages that were working fine before.

Guidelines can help. That's the only reason why things work in the first place. But they don't guarantee, I'm afraid.

Linux won't get better from more stupid people using it. It will get better from more smart users, and those are very well capable of editing their config files.

That's simply insane. People got out of the business of doing all but the most basic car maintenence YEARS ago. People got out of the business of managing all but the most basic computer tasks YEARS ago. Now you want to send them back to the "Edit your Autoexec.bat/System.ini/Win.ini/Config.sys" hell? WHY?

It has nothing to do with people being stupid. It has everything to do with people having better things to focus on. If I'm a musician, I just want to install a program that lets me read and create sheet music. If you can make that one-click, GREAT! I really don't need to know, want to know, or should be expected to know how to do complex system management!

The traditional answer to any request is "okay, go and implement it yourself". Most people are incapable of doing that. The others will cater to their own needs. Such is life.

If that is the answer, then Linux will never achieve the Desktop market penetration that the community CLAIMS it wants. There can't be two ways about this. Either we're going to support end users or we're not. It doesn't matter if it's a new distro specifically designed for end users. We just have to support them.

Right now I think you're confused on so many accounts that I'd have to decline

There's no confusion here, only opinions. While they may differ, I see no reason to insult each other over them.

Look, here's my ideas laid out in four parts, and here's a two part followup that provides more details. If you want to join, send me an email. If you don't, then don't. No skin off my nose.

I've installed Vista on a Tablet PC tc4200, for all those that were wondering, it seems no tablet functionaliy is in this build of Vista, but it runs fine on the tablet. I'm not sure if MS plans on keeping 2 versions of the OS- one for 'standard' PC's and another for tablets. You can see some screenshots and comments I have about Vista Beta 1 on my blog. I'll keep it updated as I explore. http://mtavel.blogspot.com/

Thanks for proving that Debian (where P is around 15.000) cannot possibly exist.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I didn't prove that Debian can't exist, I proved that it's nearly impossible to prevent packaging errors. With 15,000 packages, the number of possible configurations is 2.817E4515. That's a STAGGERING number for so few packages!

Making a system work with that many packages is actually straightforward: define stable interfaces. Debian has quite a number of them, collectively called "Debian Policy".

Debian Policy only defines how an application should be packaged. It does not fix any potential errors that may occur. For example, if a dependency package is missing (say, because it's considered old and was removed) how does the user resolve that dependency?

Wrong. All you have to is adhere to the FHS and install into /usr/local and /var/local.

What's wrong is assuming that /usr/local is the right place to put software. According to the FHS, Mozilla and FireFox should go in /opt. Can you name a distro that does this? And because no distros do this, many systems cannot launch FireFox and Mozilla simultaneously. Oops.

Better yet, you can a .deb yourself. What else do you want?

Something that an average user can actually *DO*. My wife would have my head on a platter for dinner if I told her to create her own DEB file for software! Good God, man! What are you thinking with?

What I want (and what Linux needs) are software distribution methods that are open, easy to use, fully support commercial software, and don't require a degree in computer science. Something like this, maybe?

Quick, remind me... Linux NEEDS commercial software to do what exactly?

Obtain general market acceptance on the Desktop! Was that fast enough?

Are you really sure that NEEDS to be done?

If the Linux community wants that acceptance, then yes. I keep hearing an affirmative on that, but then people say really dumb things like "users can just edit their system config files."

Better do more coding and less talking.

No worries. I have the code in the pipeline. All this talking is working well for recruitment. Want to join?

*grin* Read my blog. I think you'll be pleasently surprised. :-)

I addressed this very issue here. Interesting, the most common response I got is Read The F*** Manual and "It works for me, you're an idiot." Sometimes I wonder if people actually care about making Linux accessable, or are just paying lip service. :-/

I addressed this very issue here. Interesting, the most common response I got is Read The F*** Manual and "It works for me, you're an idiot." Sometimes I wonder if people actually care about making Linux accessable, or are just paying lip service. :-/

Arrogance is also very entertaining.

So, free software is not great? Why? I am Mac-ambivalent, but feel free to sweep all of us into a ridiculous generalization.

Microsoft is not inherently bad. I think there are many people there who do really good things. However, these are rarely the ones that make strategic decisions. I'd like, for example, to see MS crush Quicken, e.g., as I think Intuit is guilty of some pretty anticompetitive and lousy behavior. I think SQL Server brought a quality database to small and medium businesses. However, Internet Explorer has made my professional life (web engineering) much harder than Netscape 4 ever did. IE also displays MS's rapacious nature more sharply than many other products because, once the market was flooded and locked, as many predicted, the IE team dissolved, and no further "innovation" happened. It will be difficult for MS to overcome this bitter slap in the face.

This is not a religious or baseless attitude, but the result of bad treatment. Brianiac: IE7: Clearly a sign of desperation

Can Open Source and Commercial Software Coexist?

Yes. If they allow each other to. There are a lot of areas where Open Source fails to deliver, particularly in the areas of comprehensive solutions. Using an on-topic example, PhotoShop still has several killer features that GIMP doesn't. InDesign provides a far easier to use typesetting environment than Tex. Many users still wish they could have MS Office on Linux despite the amount of functionality in OpenOffice and KOffice. Game Creators expect to be compensated for the blood, sweat, tears, and massive overtime they put into their games.

The truth is that the two MUST co-exist if we want to get anywhere. The problem today is that they are not allowed to co-exist. Most distros today use a packaging system that pulls from a central repository. While this has many advantages for the usability of OSS, it sucks for commercial software. There's no *good* way of delivering commercial software to a Linux system. (I know, I've tried.)

These OSes are closed systems where no new software can be introduced without the blessing of the distro maintainers. That's not only not good, it goes against the very ideals of an open computer! A computer is a device that allows you to provide instructions on how to complete a task. While the door is open for "approved" OSS software and personal C++ development, where's the door for commercial software?

I've heard a lot of arguments that packaging systems can be fixed to allow for commercial repositories. Unfortunately, no one has actually explained how this would work. And as I've pointed out, the math says it's can't work. Having 2^P (where P is the number of packages available) as the possible number of software combinations (any of which can interfere with each other) is not a good situation to be in!

Linux (the community) NEEDS commercial software. But if it wants to attract it, it needs to be in a position to spark another Shareware revolution like the one seen after Windows 95. Make it easy for users to use their system. Make it so they can visit VersionTracker or Tucows and try everything under the sun! Give the users back control of their computers! Viva la Software!

This BBC story seems to be a fresh rewrite of this old National Geographic piece: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/06 10_050610_robot.html ... which was blogged here in mid-month: http://icold.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_icold_archive .html The news event unfortunately did not make it to the robot expo's event site here: http://www-1.expo2005.or.jp/en/robot/robot_project _00.html If you search on co-creator "Hiroshi Ishiguru" you get little more than this story, however.

http://oghc.blogspot.com/

Unix is very flexible, and it certainly outlive Windows. However, its development will only take it through the near future. In the long term, the very idea of unmanaged code will disappear. As will the traditional concept of the Desktop.

My predictions are:

1. Desktops will be replaced with Browser simulations of a Desktop that can work anytime, anywhere.

2. The traditional PC will then be replaced by a home server through which all activity will happen.

3. Components for Music, Television, Desktop, and Video Game consoles will (in many cases wirelessly) interact with this server.

4. The server itself will run an OS based on a managed code environment, making remote attacks difficult if not impossible. (Many Unix concepts would probably be reused in this system, but it won't *be* Unix.)

That's my thoughts anyway. Sometime in the near future, I'll get them blogged down in detail. :-)

The only problem with this device is the cost. I'm sure it's insanely expensive, especially since they don't give a price on the site you have to request one! Although it does sound like a good idea. http://www.kunae.blogspot.com/

Perhaps you would prefer the terms "unconstitutional, felonious, and tortious" to "evil". EFF has a better track record than I do of winning these sorts of cases.
  The right to anonymous press has been upheld by the supreme court at least 4 times.
Talley v California, McIntyre v Ohio, Buckley v American Constitional Law Foundation, Watchtower v Stratton. Lower courts haven't always followed these rulings.
Links at majors.blogspot.com. The first amendment was adopted in part in response to the Peter Zenger case, in which Zenger was busted for printing anonymous books.
A jury refused to convict him.
Any printer company doing this might be suable.
Deep pockets, lots of lawyers, no qualified immunity. Maybe they would respond to a cease and decist request.

Like I mentioned below I'm selling tickets for $10 each. That's a 90% discount to the offer you see here in the parent :).
Yes, I know it... ImaHO, ImaHO, ImaHO.

Video ipods are inevitable. What is generally misunderstood is (1) what it will look like and (2) what people will use it for. Most people will not be buying one for music videos or to watch feature-length films (although they may wind up watching such thiings anyway.) This is a different animal with a different reason for being. We covered the particulars in this post on our site.

They're selling a product/service they don't have. Can you imagine someone doing such a thing? - DR http://icold.blogspot.com/

Just use convert with "+antialias" instead of "-antialias". It's counter intuitive but "+" turns off antialiasing while "-", the default, turns antialiasing on.
Ben's Questions and Answers

Shameless self-promotion here, but I've started a lottery for this trip.

You are confusing the goverment system and the economic system. They are orthogonal.

Bullshit.

Guns? Huh?

Yes. Do you really expect people to just give up what they have in order to build your socialist utopia?

Yes, smarter at social manipulation. That I agree with. They are the top bullshitting sales droids.

That you refer to people buying and selling stuff as "social manipulation" tells us just how mentally deranged you are.

Capitalism is nearly obsolete.

Commies have been saying this crap ever since Marx first published his screeds. It's even less true now than it was then.

Everything is made by cheap asian labor or machines. Humans are superfulous.

So microprocessors, drugs, chemicals, data infrastructures, and the myriad of other things designed and produced in the US are actually designed by "cheap asian labor"? Do you seriously believe that machines magically build and run themselves?

All the bigshots do is sit in expensive clubs and argue over which celebrity will promote their next product (which was engineered and programmed in Asia). They don't do any real work because they don't need to.

That you seriously believe this bullshit is the reason why you will never be independently wealthy, or even financially self-sufficient.

Go back to the ash heap of history from whence you came.

http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/07/nt-60-longhor n-technology-hasta-la.html

Damien

You are assuming that the current cladistic diagrams are the only means of organizing the phyla. In fact, the cladistic organization ignores large-scale similarities in organisms simply because evolutionary they cannot be closely related. For example, look at the placental/marsupial convergence. You have entire groups of parallel organisms that only differ markedly from each other by ontogeny, dentition, and other minor features. Yet cladistics has them light-years apart because it is assumed that placentals split from the marsupials 300 million years ago.

The idea that the cladogram is the only way to organize life is a nice idea, but it simply is not true.

Multiple inheritance does in fact occur within life. Cladistics simply ignores this view, putting together a view of life based on evolution.

You can in fact organize cars in a cladogram, just by assuming that certain similarities "evolved" more than once. Otherwise there would be no need for the term "convergent evolution". In fact, each instance of "convergent evolution" simply points out more data that we can't always infer ancestry from similarity.

There are two sides to every coin. At a conference, I might want to have the ability to connect with people in a common field via a bluetooth profile broadcast, however, I value my privacy as much if not more than most.

In my opinion, a big part of the problem lies with users that fail to fully understand the technology that they've purchased; and then they're the first to complain when their own failure to take simple steps to secure their equipment and thus personal information leaks out into the big bad world.

The same people that are making a big deal about things like this bluetooth profile tool are the ones that are screaming and yelling about Murdoch and Co buying MySpace.

It wasn't like they cared about privacy when they put all their personal information and photos and blog posts detailing every intimate moment of their lives on the Internet for the world to see, or when they went about "collecting" friends so they could feel popular, but they, God forbid, a "company" buys MySpace out (by the way did you all think TOM was really your pal? I had an extended conversation with the man about providing a service for members, so I can tell you first hand he didn't work on MySpace cause he loved everyone) and everyone screams murder...

Hey~if you're so upset, don't build a profile. Don't put up a blog with photos of your house and kids, don't put your credit card numbers in your cell phone, and for pete's sake, stop blaming technology for you own inability to read the freaking instructions!

Peace, out.

-Oliver
http://qconverge.blogspot.com/

Are you considering Java based ones? There are quite a few of them like OpenCMS, Lenya and Alfresco. There is a short review here http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/km/content/archives/005 119.asp. If you want to use a portal server that has content management capabilities, then Liferay is a good choice. It is JSR168 compatible. There is a good review at http://portlets.blogspot.com/2005/07/open-source-p ortal-server-selection.html and http://www.apoorv.info/index.php/2005/07/16/open-s ource-portals-comparison/. If you are looking for non java ones, there is midgard, drupal, plone (based on zope). I've used wordpress, which although not a CMS can be used as one for smallish sites. regards /a http://apoorv.info/

i am sorry if you find the reference inapropriate. you can repalce 'autistic children' with 'old people' without changing what i am trying to say here. the point i was making was, just because you are spammer does not mean you deserve to die a terrible death is all...

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

as much as i hate spam, i find a problem with the people that are gleefully cheering the guy's death.

sure his actions are annoying and put additional unnecessary burden on society... still, that is no reason to celebrate his death. autistic children are a burden on the system too, you know..

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

These killjoys are offering us a stinking recipe ... a free recipe not free beer. Bait and switch. As for beta testing, home brewing involves substantial waits - like 4-6 weeks - before your beta testing begins. You spend your money on the materials, then taste to see if you like the recipe. This is like putting a dress pattern on the Internet and declaring "free clothing!" More outrage at http://beeryblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/free-beer-in deed.html

The only thing that (literally) kept me up last night with PC-BSD was my wireless keyboard & mouse--one would work, the other would not. It took me a little bit of trial and error to get that figured out. In the end, it was my own fault, and such a freakin' simple solution. It's embarrassing!

"For driving evolution, only natural selection is necessary."

Actually, natural selection is becoming increasingly less relevant for biochemists. Please at least look at a modern views of evolution.

For traditional evolutionists, chance is in fact a driving factor of evolution. Remember, natural selection cannot in principle create anything new. The _driver_ of neo-Darwinistic evolution was in fact chance -- natural selection was merely a step-by-step filter. But modern looks at evolution as outlined above are showing that really the driving force is the organism/genome itself, which is capable of reorganizing itself in response to environmental stresses. This is a design quality.

"OK, bring on the experiments. Describe an experiment that can be used to disprove design in a given organism."

Actually, in ID, undesign is the null hypothesis. What you have to do is show statistically that undesign is untenable.

ID divides causitive action into three possibilities: necessity, chance, and agency. If you can prove that a given item is neither a product of necessity nor chance, then it must be the result of agency.

Biology is not the only use of ID. Similar methods have been used in Archaeology for decades to decide if a given artifact was pottery or a naturally occurring substance. Likewise, a similar methodology is being used in SETI to determine if a signal from space is from natural origin or from an intelligent agent.

Of course, the most telling thing about us that would lead someone to believe in an intelligent designer is DNA. Can you name any other codal system that would be natural? DNA is not a pattern like a crystal is a pattern. Instead, DNA is a codified system, where the medium of DNA is independent of the message it signifies. In fact, you have all of the components for a Shannon communication system. In what other aspect of undesigned nature do we find a codal system? Is there any? I haven't heard of another.

Anyway, for more about ID, see setting the facts straight on Intelligent Design, and the CI set of responses from Northwest Creation Network.

"An intelligent designer would create intelligent designs, with each feature designed perfectly to fit its intended purpose."

This is assuming a perfect creation. Evolution is full of metaphysical assumptions, but pretends its not. See Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. His main point is that the biggest problem of evolution is not its metaphysics, but its denial of its metaphysics.

Anyway, let's look at some flaws in your assumptions:

1) God would make each creature perfect. In fact, God specifically said he made some creatures persue folly by design.
2) Each creature currently is as it was created. Would not a good engineer make a creature adaptable?
3) Each creatures is as perfect as was originally made. But Biblically, all creation was affected by the fall.

It sounds like your arguments are from Gould. Gould was a great writer and an excellent thinker, but he failed to see (or even possibly know about) how the fall would affect biology. Understanding the Pattern of Life has a great chapters on both biodiversity and biological imperfection. While it probably isn't enough to convince a skeptic, it would probably be useful for skeptics to at least understand the creationist perspective.

Most people also don't understand that both creationists and evolutionists believe in evolution, the main difference being that creationists believe in a polyphyletic tree, and that biodiversity was built-in while evolutionists think that it was not built in.

"An intelligent designer would create intelligent designs, with each feature designed perfectly to fit its intended purpose."

This is assuming a perfect creation. Evolution is full of metaphysical assumptions, but pretends its not. See Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. His main point is that the biggest problem of evolution is not its metaphysics, but its denial of its metaphysics.

Anyway, let's look at some flaws in your assumptions:

1) God would make each creature perfect. In fact, God specifically said he made some creatures persue folly by design.
2) Each creature currently is as it was created. Would not a good engineer make a creature adaptable?
3) Each creatures is as perfect as was originally made. But Biblically, all creation was affected by the fall.

It sounds like your arguments are from Gould. Gould was a great writer and an excellent thinker, but he failed to see (or even possibly know about) how the fall would affect biology. Understanding the Pattern of Life has a great chapters on both biodiversity and biological imperfection. While it probably isn't enough to convince a skeptic, it would probably be useful for skeptics to at least understand the creationist perspective.

Most people also don't understand that both creationists and evolutionists believe in evolution, the main difference being that creationists believe in a polyphyletic tree, and that biodiversity was built-in while evolutionists think that it was not built in.

"Creating a free beer sounds fun but frivolous - one may ask what meaning this really has concerning food, or other physical products. I believe it is quite the opposite; that is, that Vores Øl has given us the freedom to protect our ideas and promote innovation. Already many recipes, cooking methods, ingredients, even entire species of plants and animals are patented and copyrighted. Vores Øl aims to publicize the fact that there is an alternative to the monopolistic act of traditional copyright law - and a simple alternative at that. Share and share alike is the mantra here. So how about you share some of your beer with me?"

-I wrote this on my food blog last week about the Free beer. Too many real world physical things are becoming patented. Innovation is being stifled and aggressive capitalism is preventing creativity. I think the best part of this project is that it simply raises awareness of the fact that copyright, trademark, int. property law, etc. don't have to continue going the way they are going.

-Aaron

http://aliment.blogspot.com/

Yes

Why isn't BSD as well known as Linux if it's supposedly so much better? The answer's pretty obvious to me...

Expect MS to release a hotfix removing that offensive building.

(well, they did the same to some font...)

That said... free/open source software can be worth much more than pay/proprietary software ;)

*Shameless Self-Promotion :P

Today, science and manned spaceflight are nearly mutually exclusive at NASA, unfortunately. I expect these initiatives will have the same effect on science that the Space Station had -- largely negative. The following is from http://nightquill.blogspot.com/ I started dissertation work when I was 23. I knew an astrophysicist was what I longed to be. I wanted to build satellites that gaze up at the stars, But Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. I hear there aren't very many bars. They won't let you bring cigarettes, or even fine cigars. Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. They said "Your research must support the Exploration Vision, And if you can't adapt to it, you might as well go fishin' ". But no one bought my argument that spaceflight would be over If astronauts encountered an uncharted supernova! Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. Don't want to show those NASA medics my appendix scars. They force you to relieve yourself in tiny little jars. Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. Now if we beg a thousand times they might just save the Hubble -- And leave the rest of science in a thousand kinds of trouble. And planetary scientists expecting great largesse Should think of all the science that gets done on ISS! Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. Don't care if lower gravity helps golfers shoot more pars. In space no one can hear us when we play on our guitars. Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. I still don't know just how we're gonna pay for it. But please don't take my little grants away for it. Look in on any campus and you'll see who will be hurtin' While all those no-bid moonbase contracts go to Halliburton! Oh Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars. Just count me with the "no we're nots" and not the "yes we ares", Let's keep on sending orbiters and funny little cars, But Mama, I don't wanna go, And there's no way I'm gonna go, Mama...I...don't...want...to...go...to..... [tune changes to "Rocket Man"]: Mars....ain't the kind of place to raise your kids..... [back to tempo]: So Mama, I don't wanna go to Mars! Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One........No funds. --Anonymous