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I'm sure they won't be getting a sweet deal switching over to the patent-holding company

I'm sure they won't. The patent-holding company doesn't even run a phone service:

Freedom Wireless, a four-person company, has never set up an actual business serving customers; it seeks royalties from companies like BCGI, Verizon Wireless, and Nextel Communications Inc.

Freedom Wireless, a four-person company, has never set up an actual business serving customers; it seeks royalties from companies like BCGI, Verizon Wireless, and Nextel Communications Inc. At the heart of Freedom's 1996 patent is the idea of using a computer to match a cellphone number with a database showing how many paid-up minutes the cellphone owner has, then deciding whether to complete a call.

I guess no one's ever thought up that particular use for a database before...

"Facts"? It's about as factual about climate change as Team America is about terrorism, only not so entertaining. See, for instance, Michael Crichton's State of Confusion.

Things similar to what you have just posted are backed up with footnotes

Checking Crichton's footnotes: "Crichton supplies references. But UMass-Amherst climatologist Douglas Hardy, a coauthor of the 2004 paper on Kilimanjaro cited, says Crichton is distorting his work. Crichton is doing ''what I perceive the denialists always to do,'' says Hardy. ''And that is to take things out of context, or take elements of reality and twist them a little bit, or combine them with other elements of reality to support their desired outcome.''"

These men died (rightly or wrongly) in service to their country. It is incredibly disrespectful to use them as a public spectacle to promote an agenda of any kind.

Absolutely, 100% agreed. However, I think it is the hypocrisy of the Bush administration taking such a position that upset people. I mean, they OBVIOUSLY have no problem exploiting emotional, potentially upsetting images to promote THEIR agenda, but cry foul when "the other side" wants to do it?

That was probably the first press picture they found and didn't bother looking for one a little more representative of the series.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/gallery/topscifishows? pg=14

Martin Landau played Commander John Koenig, not Walter Koenig. Walter Koenig is the actor for Paval Chekov in the original Star Trek series.

Nice work, eh.

Space: 1999 at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072564/
Walter Koenig at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Koenig

Ain't you Charlie?

If I were a CS student right now, I would do everything I could-- courses, hacking through books, internships, anything-- to learn and get as much experience as I could on System 390/zSeries mainframes, and related technologies (CICS, IMS, DB2, and yes even COBOL). There is a huge mainframe brain-drain (buzzword potential here) with a large number of mainframers reaching retirement age, no-one to replace them, and no signs of mainframe usage stopping.

It's been the best-kept secret in IT for 10 years, but the mainstream media is even taking notice as this artice demonstrates.

Just this past May I went to the International DB2 User's Group North American (IDUG)conference in Denver, and by far the most gainfully employed independent consultants we the Mainframers. I know for a fact that where I live (Gartford, CT, USA area) there's a huge demand for mainframe personnel at pretty much every level. But even in relatively remote parts (I met a mainframer who works for a trucking company in Montana) there's plenty to do.

Admittedly I'm taking a purely practical (not to say mercenary) view of the purpose of education but, if that's a big concern for you, I'd go for it. I'm a DB2 on Unix DBA and if I were ever to change, I know where I'd go in a heartbeat-- even though I happen to love what I'm doing.

Interesting, but wrong. Perhaps someone forgot to tell the Federal Courts and the ACLU it is all constitutional. Several parts of the Patriot Act have been struck down now. The first challenge to make it through the court system that was successful and can be found here. There are several more challenges in the works and there have been at least two (counting the one I linked to) that have been successful. It takes a long time for these things to be fettered out. Just because the law was passed, doesn't make it right or constitutional, such as was the case in the Sedition Act of 1798. That made it illegal to even 'utter' a word that could be construed as dissident against the United states or it's representatives. Thankfully that too was later found as unconstitutional and repealed.

I assume this will effect the hacked disposable digital cameras and camcorders?

Hardly. To quote this article:

"CVS bounced my inquiry to San Francisco-based Peer Digital, which makes the disposable camcorders. Spokeswoman Wynne Ahern chuckled when she learned that Peer's super-secret technology had been tampered with. [...] 'Do-it-yourselfers,' she said,'are not our target audience. It's sort of a nonissue.'"

It's a pity they've got their heads up their collective asses. I'd be happy to pay for on-line content if they'd provide a reasonable service. You'd think iTunes would have taught them a lesson.

I'd think they'd learned from Betamax. Movie studios were so afraid video cassettes would rob studios because people would be able to record movies yet tape sales became hugh profit makers. Seems what they are afraid of is new technology that gives movie watchers choices of what to watch when. There are some though who get it, like Mark Cuban the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He first made a fortune from the internet so he gets it. Now he's pushing HDTV and is part owner of HDNet. He's also owner of Landmark Theatres and is working on delivering movies to theatres through broadband which eliminates shipping of film, reducing costs.

Here's a link for those of you who would rather not register just to read the second half of the article...

Who'll mind the mainframes?

Over here, the first time one of this guy's patients had an upset tummy after the procedure, he'd be sued for everything he owns. Medical progress now depends on large corporations with good legal departments and expensive insurance-- but even the big boys are now in jeopardy from a legal system run amok.

-ccm

If you actually want to read about the project on creating life "from scratch", that would be here

Autism has been linked pretty conclusively with mercury in vaccinations

"In some cases, depending on the product, they may have to manually increase or decrease the time."

Also, the url begins with http://www.boston.com/business/ Sounds like US-business throwing some FUD into the techworld.

All remaining males in Fallujah after the US assault were to be made to participate in forced labour reconstruction schemes. Also look at the "citizen processing centers". Isn't "democracy" wonderful?

Cringely writes:
"Skype threatens only incumbent FIXED phone service, not mobile service. Skype causes headaches for Verizon, but not for Verizon Wireless"

Wrong. Big cities start talking about Wifi wireless coverage across the entire city. Why would you spend your precious cellphone minutes in a Wifi enabled city, if your friends have Skype too?

Just to add to what others have said about that claim.

The human body is no where near 98% water.
"In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water." - Jeffrey Utz, M.D., Neuroscience, pediatrics, Allegheny University (link)

Other sources: Boston Globe & Encarta

she probably only stands a chance if the gop puts up a woman too.

Victoria Snelgrove (Oct 21, 2004)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/11/ 13/video_clip_records_fatal_fenway_shooting?pg=ful l http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/Headline_Archives /2005/05/well_never_forg_1.html

Victoria Snelgrove (Oct 21, 2004)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/11/ 13/video_clip_records_fatal_fenway_shooting?pg=ful l http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/Headline_Archives /2005/05/well_never_forg_1.html

certainly there are instances where the line is grey and the police in charge of these devices have inappropriately chosen to use them

yeah, like when that redsox fan got shot in the face with a pepper spray pellet and died.
(http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds ox/arti cles/2004/10/22/postgame_police_projectile_kills_a n_emerson_student/).

Iraq is already one of the most brutally hot places on earth. Apparently it's like blowing a hair dryer full-blast at one's face while simultaneously being pummeled with sand.

These heat-toughened rioters are going to laugh in the face of a little extra microwave radiation.

The real question is, can we trust the weapon operators to use this responsibly?

Probably not. Last year the police in the US managed to shoot one of their pepper-spray paintballs through an bystanding girl's eye, killing her. And that's a "non-lethal" weapon you can aim!

The thing in the article covers an entire area. Do you think the operator is going to check and make sure that nobody in the crowd is wearing glasses, jewelry, or contacts? That's impossible!

Even in theory, this isn't a non-lethal weapon at all... It's quite obvious that this is intended as a means of disarming (have we forgotten that guns/knives are metal?) and/or killing large groups of people immediately without collateral damage; just like a neutron bomb, only more controllable and cheaper.

-Grym

Our alternative was a dude with a similar level of intelligence.

... who sent their sons (not HIS sons though)

He has no sons.

to a bloody war in the middle of the fucking desert to the wrong country (according Michael Moore at least) and allowed terrorism to their doorsteps in the process, instead of voting for a guy who didnt opossed to gay marriage.

Standard slashdot rhetoric: It's Bush's fault that Rockstar is in trouble, even though it's Hillary Clinton who is apparantly leading the crusade. Bitch about Iraq and gay marriage, two topics completely unrelated to this, to remind the other hive-mind Democrats that Bush is "teh suck" and watch the positive mod points roll in.

Maybe you should go visit this one.

It's shocking to me how little Americans know about corruption in their government and how the corruption has lowered the quality of their lives.

The U.S. government has weak accounting laws that allow hiding the true profitability of a company. That's how so many people lost money in the Merrill Lynch, Enron, Arthur Anderson (28,000 people lost their jobs.), Worldcom, Tyco, Adelphia, HealthSouth, and many other cases. But most people just don't care, and the U.S. government has still done little but prosecute a few of the most open and obvious perpetrators. No effective, fundamental changes have been made.

Now that cable broadband is officially an info service, not a telecom service, its providers don't have to pay taxes. So of course its users have to pay taxes, or Congress won't be able to pass itself pay raises. The money's gotta come from somewhere - and it ain't comin' from campaign bribes^Wcontributions. That money is mostly spent on ads, run by cable companies.

The story at boston.com has more details and the city planners have so far said they will give due consideration.

Of course they didn't. You know why? Because, "Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined" does not imply that criminal charges will be filed. It implies that the students could receive in-school sanction.

Clearly you have misread the warning, in truth it said, "Students who violate the computer policy will be ass-raped repeatedly." That does imply felony charges or possibly just forcing violators to join the school wrestling team.

Of course, you really mean a two faced cat.

>> it's still service to the state without being
>> considered part of the federal armed forces.

I like this idea a LOT. It would also ease the strain that governors are under due to the extensive
deployments of the nat'l guard, such as Montana's forest fire problems.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06 /05/montana_in_a_tug_of_war_for_guardsmen/

>Personally, I'd prefer it if $HUMAN_RIGHTS_VIOLATOR *now* can't use GPL-ed code

Lets remind ourselves that $HUMAN_RIGHTS_VIOLATOR can use the loophole in (L)GPL that allows xSPs running GPL apps without abiding by the license (as they do not re-distribute the code).

Here are some workarounds for opressive governments worldwide:

a) have xSPs (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo et al) do the dirty work fo' ya (Microsoft a bit less likely to use GPL software for that, but still).
Motto: We're snitches so you don't have to be.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles /2005/06/20/tech_firms_help_tyrants_keep_their_gri p/

b) outsource IT operations to multinationals who will run GPL-ed code in any way necessary (including assisting in human rights violations) as long as it helps them make money.
I can wholeheartedly recommend IBM as they have related experience and references stretching as far back as World War II.

This smells fishy. Especially considering most of the authors of the original 1998 study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have apologised and had their paper retracted by the Lancet due to a conflict of interest. Furthermore, a recent study of Danish children has shown rates of autism continued to increase even after the removal of thimersol from vaccines (via a MetaFilter discussion of this topic).

Now, don't get me wrong; it may still be the case that thimersol or some other vaccine ingredient contributes to autism. However, the balance of evidence from qualified medical researchers is against this viewpoint at the moment, and it's unethical of Mr Kennedy to start spreading what is essentially FUD unless he has the epidemiological data to back it up.

There have been purges of people in the CIA, and other government organizations of anyone that does not have political views in line with that of the present republican administration. This is one more.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion /oped/articles/2004/11/19/the_purge_at_cia/

Yeah, 'cuz it makes Kerry look bad...

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/artic les/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lack luster_student?mode=PF

JOHN KERRY OFFICIALLY DUMBER THAN PRESIDENT GEORGE WALKER BUSH!

Communist rag confirms.

Hope all you communists are satisfied with your votes.

My hypothesis is that Kerry was used as a model for this simulation.

If we use grades from college as a method to gauge intelligence, than I would say that Kerry was dumber than Bush.

We also have already shown that Kerry has no conscious because he is a democrat.

Kerry talks like a robot as well.

Therefore, Kerry fits the profile.

Check out this link:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/artic les/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lack luster_student/

Actually Tom and Jerry hug and go to church.

Q: What's the difference between a dissident and a terrorist?

A: Only your point of view.

The [teacher's] union mobilized its forces for John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential race, and its objections to Bush's education law prompted Rod Paige, the former secretary of education, to call the NEA a "terrorist organization."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art icles/2005/05/01/harvard_professor_offers_services _as_hollywood_mathematician/

/.'s article here is the first I've heard of this Real ID plan...

Well, aside from the obvious fact that since the neo-con coup the network media hasn't covered anything except talking-dubya-points, the reason you haven't noticed this tidbit of legistlation (which apparently started back in Feburary) is because "liberal media" has painted it as an immagration issue - that is: the only people targeted by this legislation according to the to PTB and their media cheerleaders were illegal aliens - I heard it debated on Faux News as an immagration issue a least a month ago. I would have to say either a) you haven't been paying attention, or b) you are foolish enough to a ctually believe the that the motives these pseudo-news agencies put forward are the actual intent of the neo-con coup. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course...

Here is a list of articles about this legislation (trivially found using Google) from some touchy feely immagration rights outfit that no one will pay any attention to.

[ -- copied & pasted -- ]

The REAL ID Act in the Media

• "Jewish Groups Oppose US's Stricter Controls on Asylum," Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2005
• "Death Sentence?" Christianity Today, March 8, 2005
• "Republican Plan Would Tighten Laws for Asylum Cases," Hearst Newspapers, March 6, 2005
• "Keep the Doors Open," The Jewish Week editorial, February 25, 2005
• "Unwelcome Mat," The Boston Globe, February 25, 2005
• "Religious Asylum Assailed," Family News in Focus, February 22, 2005 (PDF - 51KB)
• "Proyecto de ley torpedea el derecho de asilo," El Nuevo Herald, February 22, 2005
• "Conservative camps split on tightening asylum," The Boston Globe, February 21, 2005
• "Not broke, don't fix," The Washington Times, February 20, 2005
• "National ID Party," The Wall Street Journal editorial, February 17, 2005 (subscription required)
• "On Guard, America," The New York Times editorial, February 15, 2005
• "Refugee Politics," The Baltimore Sun editorial, February 14, 2005
• "Real ID Act deserves defeat in the Senate," San Antonio Express-News editorial, February 18, 2005
• "Playing the terror card," Contra Costa Times, February 14, 2005
• "Ineffectual migrant policy," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial

/.'s article here is the first I've heard of this Real ID plan...

Well, aside from the obvious fact that since the neo-con coup the network media hasn't covered anything except talking-dubya-points, the reason you haven't noticed this tidbit of legistlation (which apparently started back in Feburary) is because "liberal media" has painted it as an immagration issue - that is: the only people targeted by this legislation according to the to PTB and their media cheerleaders were illegal aliens - I heard it debated on Faux News as an immagration issue a least a month ago. I would have to say either a) you haven't been paying attention, or b) you are foolish enough to a ctually believe the that the motives these pseudo-news agencies put forward are the actual intent of the neo-con coup. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course...

Here is a list of articles about this legislation (trivially found using Google) from some touchy feely immagration rights outfit that no one will pay any attention to.

[ -- copied & pasted -- ]

The REAL ID Act in the Media

• "Jewish Groups Oppose US's Stricter Controls on Asylum," Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2005
• "Death Sentence?" Christianity Today, March 8, 2005
• "Republican Plan Would Tighten Laws for Asylum Cases," Hearst Newspapers, March 6, 2005
• "Keep the Doors Open," The Jewish Week editorial, February 25, 2005
• "Unwelcome Mat," The Boston Globe, February 25, 2005
• "Religious Asylum Assailed," Family News in Focus, February 22, 2005 (PDF - 51KB)
• "Proyecto de ley torpedea el derecho de asilo," El Nuevo Herald, February 22, 2005
• "Conservative camps split on tightening asylum," The Boston Globe, February 21, 2005
• "Not broke, don't fix," The Washington Times, February 20, 2005
• "National ID Party," The Wall Street Journal editorial, February 17, 2005 (subscription required)
• "On Guard, America," The New York Times editorial, February 15, 2005
• "Refugee Politics," The Baltimore Sun editorial, February 14, 2005
• "Real ID Act deserves defeat in the Senate," San Antonio Express-News editorial, February 18, 2005
• "Playing the terror card," Contra Costa Times, February 14, 2005
• "Ineffectual migrant policy," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial

You realize of course that the woman who CLAIMED to find that finger is now facing fraud charges right?
here
or here
or here even
another one

In other words.. she's a known con artist, and now she's paying the price for being clumsy.

That Kerry wouldn't have done the same?

Ok. Kerry wouldn't have done the same. Not because he's vastly more moral than this administration. Rather, because it never would have occurred to the Democrats to be this petty.

This administration applies loyalty tests to everything, including scientific advisory appointments and attendance at campaign events.

Disappointing, petty, and not even surprising anymore.

KPMG knows a thing or two or threeabout numbers not quite adding up.

Like the current system is so great? See: Grand jury said to probe death of boy [in State foster care].

My best friend's sister and her partner have been together for 20 years now. They're well adjusted and fincially well off, achived through a lot of hard work. Since they live in the great state of MA they are now legally married.

There is no scientific reason not to allow them to adopt and be foster parents. Too many good homes that could really help out a difficult problem if it wasn't for a small group of christain bigots.

I see no evidence of gay bashing on Bush's part.

He wants to admend the US Constituion, a document that protects rights and use it to restrict them. That's bashing them in my book, just with nicer words.

Someone please answer this question: without bringing in an unseen "high power" can you still say same sex couples should not be married? Imposing a religous doctine on a minority ("Gays are sinner and evil") is not what our Founder Father had in mind.

Let them marry so they can see wild ride of marriage is like. IMO they'd make

Google around for Milton Academy. Recently, a 15 year old girl gave blow jobs to five 16 year old boys. All of them were suspended, but there is a law that makes it illegal for 16 year olds to have sex with 15 year olds. The police were considering charging the boys with statutory rape, because it qualifies under state law. Here's a link.

No registration required. Thanks google.