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Oh you are entirely full of lies now...

Fist of all nobody in Guantanamo bay is granted POW status.

Wrong.

some have been transfered to other countries so that they could be tortured.

Wrong, Look at where they went to. Very Muslim sympathetic countries. The only evidence that they were put there to be tortured are brought about by anonymous hearsay. Sorry bub.

Also, I don't know if you caught yourself doing a grossly missrepresentational spin job...

"[A]ll swarthy people should be locked up," has very little to do (other than topically) with the quote you provided, "Passports can be ... checked with the home country in case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males." She's talking about checking with foreign nations to verify identity, not locking people up for skin color. In fact thats soo gross a misrepresntation I begin to think that you have no sincerity for the truth at all. Your just hunting your great white elephant with lies and conjectures.

You said you didn't know who he was not me.

Wrong. And if I'm not wrong, go ahead and show me where I said it. The problem about lying is that you will get caught, especially when you try to lie about what another person says. And so far your not doing a very credible job at all.

You keep bringing up hitler as if that absolves the right wing of anything.

Wrong, I bring up Hitler to provide context for your mistaken call for revolution. Its too much like the rise to power rhetoric of Hitler, Mousselini, Pol-Pot and Charles Taylor that turned out to be the worst rulers evar. Its very unlike the rhetoric of Ghandi, MLK, the Founding Fathers, etc...

Why do you think I am the only person who thinks the US is turning into a police state?

Again, another complete misrepresentation. This is getting rather annoying. I *never* said you were the only one, nor have I "thunk" it.

I would rather be a hammer then a nail anyday. If my choices are to be locked up in some prison or imprison other people what do you think I'll do? Damned right I would choose to be the guard outside the chain link cage that gets to go home at night.

Way too much like Charles Taylor there. Way too hungry for opression. Its chilling that such misguided people like you are out there ready to be a hammer and imprison people.

I am simply using the exact same tools that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and David Horowitz uses.

Even the very same words most often. Now if that isn't cause for pause.

You don't mind it when they use it because they are attacking liberals which you also hate but you mind it when I use it.

I've never seen them near as paranoid or desire as much control over others lives as I've seen from you. Its not a matter of direction as scale. You go way over the top on all this, and have proven to be seldom right. And as it stands David Horowitz is rather benign. Ann and Rush maybe, but David doesn't have a malignant bone in his body.

This entire thread has been about shutting me up

No its been about trying to help someone who's going off the deep end. I've engaged in discussion, not censorship. I'm rather sad that you take such conversation as oppressive and feel the need to be oppressive yourself. You really should see some nice professional who can help you get back in touch dude. Really, for your own good.

exploitation of black African minors

Uh...I thought that was R. Kelly.

GF.

Australia?

(Being that Australia was originally a British penal colony, and the extimated population of Australia is 19,896,826; according to this article there are 57 million US P2P users, by this article, so maybe the coast part of Australia isn't large enough, anyway.)

57 million. Unbelievable. That's just a little short of half the people who voted last Presidential election.

Okay, I went off on a bit of a tangent there.

I don't think Bush should bear the blame for the bust that's happened on his watch.

He may not be to blame, but he's not helped the situation at all, and through his inaction with corporate scandals like Enron, he's made a bad situation worse. Uncertainty, and a low level of investor confidence have a negative effect on the market, and the economy as a whole.

And to top it off, we're spending 4 billion dollars a month to police Iraq, and we're going to be spending that every month, for the next 2-4 years. Wouldn't that money be much better spent as domestic economic stimulus? People are out of work, old people and children have their health care taken away because of "budgetary constraints", but we can spend $45 billion dollars yearly providing services to another country?

Yeah, Bush is doing a great job, if you're an Iraqi. Why doesn't he just go and be president over there? He, Cheney and Rumsfeld can have their police state, and the rest of us can get back to being a prosperous democracy.

The following article describes using sound as a lethal weapon in the form of an invention by Norris called "Hypersonic sound".

(This has been discussed on slashdot before, twice.)

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times article: "It gives you the equivalent of an intense migraine headache," said Elwood G. Norris, the company's chairman and inventor of the device. "It's just totally disabling."

Put another way, at $600 billion, that works out to about $3000 for every adult in the country. Our GNP is about $10 trillion, so if the telemarketing number is correct, telemarketers account for 6% of our GNP.

Honestly, I made up the $50K number; the industry itslef claims employment of about 6 million people. Do you believe that 5% of our workers are telemarketers? Do you have any.

Essentially, this number so obviousy fails the smell test that it's pathetic. It's sad that the media breathlessly report this number without considering its meaning for even a minute. Go find the industry study that details where the $600 billion number came from and read it, because the news outlets that you rely on obviously didn't.

They also claim 180 million sales transactions, which is probably correct. That means the average transaction is more than $3000! Do you know anyone who bought $3000 worth of stuff from a telemarketer?

Story

I doubt telemarketing is responsible for anywhere close to 6% of our total economic output. Believe what you will, but I don't buy the industry BS.

I didn't say patents were evil. I said there are evil people out there that don't give a rats arse about right and wrong. Those types who have access to stupid patents tend to use those patents to do evil. Think of the asshat who has the patent to "electronic commerce" and how he has used it to threaten and extort money from small businesses.

I am encouraging folks to remind Netflix that we do not like to do business with evil people, and that Netflix ought to be encouraged to sit on this patent indefinitely.

I have to wonder what happened to our old friend Bernie. He's got to be a prime example of online reputations.

With all of the new wireless-enabled cars that are due to come out (like Daimler-Chrysler's UConnect) and emerging hacking tools like Redfang it's getting scary to drive a car.

Tang Teflon Velcro and NASA

SPRINGFIELD -- On-line marketers would be required to clearly label unsolicited "spam" e-mail sent to Illinois residents as advertising or pornography under a measure passed by the Illinois Senate Tuesday and sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Designed to reduce the flood of unwanted e-mail, the bill also would penalize businesses that sell customers' e-mail addresses after they have requested removal from mailing lists. It would require a spammer to set-up a toll-free telephone number or valid reply address that consumers can call or write to demand removal from the company's solicitation lists.

The 20th anniv. DVD of E.T. replaced the feds' guns with walkie talkies. No, really!

Ewoks were originally scripted to be wookies, but were changed for the cuddly marketing bonus(?)!

Temple of Doom is regarded as the worst of the three, mostly because the director, as they often do, was dating (and is now married to) the leading lady.

Odd, it did the last time we tried...

Let's see, where to start... well, there's Velcro and Tang... Er, anyway. Some things that benefit everyone:

Weather satellites, which warn of impending storms and helping people to be prepared, saving thousands of lives. As well as helping reduce property damage by warning people to board up before they get hit.

Smoke dectors, which almost everyone has, to help people get out of their houses should fire break out. Fire fighters wear materials developed by NASA which help them save lives. Medicine has been improved as well.

Now for some links: Space program benefits us all, an article on how the space program is important (although it doesn't list any good examples), and Inventions (Spinoffs) from Space, a list of space inventions, including a game for children to play.

The space program benefits everyone, even if they don't immediately recognize the benefits. Yeah, the deal that blacks/African Americans/whatever is PC got sucks, and racism plagues America to this day. But there's no reason to take it out on the space program, which has helped everyone.

And of course criminals have no place in law enforcement. </sarcasm>

Of course, the Tribune also has a CYA article in which they explain that the hype may not match reality. They explain that you cannot compare the statistics showing the jobs that will need to be filled to the numbers representing available employees because an employed person can wear two hats and knock two items off of the needed jobs list.

It gets worse. There was just a Chicago Tribune story about the various deliterious effects this is having on all aspects of life. One guy was denied multiple jobs purely based on the results of his credit report.

You need a decent score to get a phone, utilities, and now a job. Ridiculous, but the fact is, it's an employer's market these days.

What's next? "Well, we need you to pee in this cup to screen for genetic susceptibilities. Also, you'll need to sign this pledge promising not to smoke, to lower your cholestorol, and to have safe sex. After all, we're putting a lot of time and energy into training you to be our help desk jockey..."

I was trying to find stories about counterfeit mice but I could only find stuff about that here and here

but
This story is much better

A Seattle jury called it misappropriation of trade secrets and last month [Dec 2001] awarded a $16.5 million in damages to Fernando Falcon and Federico Gilligan.

The Argentine inventors Falcon and Gilligan invented a computer mouse that allowed concurrent pointing and scrolling. They showed their work in 1993 to KeyTronicEMS, a computer electronics manufacturer in Spokane, Wash., and helped the company build two prototypes. Together they planned to take the mouse to market.

At the time, KeyTronic was struggling to overcome an $8 million loss and hoping to land a lucrative contract making keyboards for Microsoft Corp.

KeyTronic's then-director of research and development, Charles Fauble, assured Falcon and Gilligan that he would show the mice to Microsoft developers at a December 1993 business meeting. That was the last time anyone remembers seeing the devices.

KeyTronic couldn't explain in court how it lost the devices, and Microsoft couldn't explain how the inventors' technology wound up in its Intellimouse, which hit store shelves in 1996.

Here's what was clear: KeyTronic scored a $160 million keyboard contract from Microsoft, and Microsoft raked in roughly $650 million from one of the best selling mouse products of all time.

Vickrey said there was no evidence that Microsoft knew it was getting Falcon and Gilligan's confidential technology.

"I've never seen anything like it," Markham police Sgt. Jim Knapp said of the Apple computer users nationwide whose teamwork led police to Christmas. "They have this strong bond that's about a lot more than their computers."

Congrats

A Nation of Thieves?

Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to be. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere -- while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.

These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people haven't noticed.

People are noticing that something isn't quite right -- that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible form of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.

Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid yourself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about you and your measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders -- i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.

This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction -- but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before our eyes.

A Little History

Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).

And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).

And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).

Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total -- and how long will it be before there are even fewer?

It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies -- and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.

Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence -- i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.

The Art of Manipulation

It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break through" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.

Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.

So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread -- as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.

Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter -- for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.

In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 -- and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.

Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?

Power Struggles

The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money -- enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.

The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline forced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it too is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.

In addition, people also realize all too well that governments have little -- if any -- power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens -- and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.

One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world -- a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-2-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.

A Nation of Thieves?

Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will -- but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law -- all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.

Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-2-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further -- but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.

What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should be" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.

More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.

This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist -- regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.

Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?

Protecting the Product

It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.

This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.

It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.

So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-2-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.

If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.

The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep through the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, today more than ever -- i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.

As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art form by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available -- and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?

It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (be it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing -- consciously or not -- their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.

The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.

Don't Get It Twisted

That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.

For example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?

In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".

And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.

Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...

If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases -- as it is threatening to do -- the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply be, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".

Conclusion

The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.

How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?

It all depends on us -- and it all depends on you.

[Ed: original used "2" for both "to" and "too" -- grammatical errors in that department are my fault. Only changes should be related to spelling, formatting and links preserved. Various Unicode characters translated to ASCII for the benifit of Slashdot. "Peer-2-peer" is kept as original.]

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*FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION
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07/31/02

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The Chicago Trib is running this story on the shrinking of various glaciers around the world that is also pretty terrifying. Perhaps its time for Bush to reconsider Kyoto?

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

No kidding.
Check out this article.

American citizen and suspected terrorist confederate, is arrested May 8 at O'Hare International Airport. He is held for a month in the criminal justice system, then transferred by presidential order to military custody for an indefinite period, not charged with any crime and cut off from contact with a lawyer.

--snip--

"Saying you can take an American citizen, arrested in the United States in a non-combat situation, far removed from a war zone, and lock him up indefinitely with no access to a trial and no access to a lawyer raises fairly chilling questions under the Bill of Rights," said Doug Cassel, director of the Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern University School of Law.

How does this happen in a "free" country?

"...maybe we could convince the 1.2 billion Chinese, that you can dump your junk on their soil, if they can dump their junk on your soil.
Come to think of it, the US might still be better off: It is still the world's largest poluter per capita and *not willing to do anything about it*."

China is polluting the USA soil. Actually, a lot of the pollution is their soil. Fortunately, they have a large population to reduce the pollution per capita.

I don't think a young teen has to be a "complete MORON" to get into trouble. If they are somewhat unpopular, advances from an older person may seem much more credible than they are. Especially if the predator has any amount of intelligence and just tells the child what they want to hear. In today's Chicago Tribune is an article about a 41 year old man that abducted a 13 year old girl from Ohio. He had been having an "online relationship" with her since February.

NOT!

``...there are some alternative points of view too: a study at the University of Buffalo claims that music sharing may cut down on superstars and promote new music.''

Hasn't it been demonstrated many times in the past few years that the only artists that are benefitting from the contracts with major record distributors has been those superstars? The smaller, lesser known bands -- the ones that produce the far more interesting music (IMHO) -- get little benefit from deals with the major labels.

``a nice chart I saw a few days ago compares CD sales vs. price over the last several years and suggests that price-fixing by the recording industry may play a part in slowing sales''

And I take ``the recording industry'' to mean the megalabels. CD prices have actually appeared to be decreasing for the music put out by the smaller labels. (But the big music store chains don't seem to be passing those lower prices on to the customers.) I've been seeing prices down in the US$10-$12 range -- sometimes under $10 -- for many CDs put out by small, independent labels. Of course my musical tastes don't run along the lines of an artist who's paid US$30M and told not to let the door hit her in the ass on the way out. So YMMV. Of course, you have to know where to look for these CDs. You won't find them at Best Buy, WalMart, Tower, or any of the other giant chains that the major labels like to sell through. You have to buy most of these CDs over the internet. And we all know just how well the major record labels understand the internet now don't we.

There was an interesting, multipage article in the 4/14 edition of the Chicago Tribune (see ``Rocking Radio's World'' under ``Arts and Entertainment'' at their web site (free registration req'd.) that was describing -- among other things -- the ill-effects of the consolidation of the major radio outlets in the US. It seems that radio listeners are turning elsewhere to hear the music that they want: satellite and the Web. The traditional broadcasters are so concerned about not offending their listeners sensitive ears that they'll program Nsync and Britney Spears clones all day long. One radio exec actually thinks that that's what everyone wants to hear. If memory serves, his comment was ``people only want to hear the hits. I guess that means only the music that the major distributors have decided are to be hits.

I grew up listening to a radio station that converted to a rock format after having been for many years a classical station (Bonus points for the person who identifies this station). Their format for a long time was to have a pair of ``featured artists'' each day. That meant that probably once an hour you'd hear a song by one of the featured artists. I never knew of anyone who complained when the featured artists were, oh, Santana and Stravinsky or the Beatles and Bach. But I do know many people who do not listen to that station any more after its purchase by one of the major radio conglomerates and the format changed to bland, formulaic, hits-only programming. Failure to recognize that their listeners actually like having their ears challenged will -- I can only hope -- be their downfall.

If these folks want to know why music purchases are down, why traditional radio stations aren't being listened to any more all they have to do is ask and listen to the what people are telling them. But I suspect that the music execs are pathologically incapable of doing the latter and it'll take bankrupcy to finally get their attention.

Fermi project could alter how we view galaxy

By Gary Ruderman
Special to the Tribune
Published March 11, 2002

The field guide to the universe is slowly taking shape at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Batavia.

Hundreds of gigabytes of digital pictures are delivered weekly to Fermilab for compilation that, over the next three years, will deliver the most comprehensive map of the hundreds of millions of galaxies that make up what astronomer Carl Sagan called the "cosmos."

Like the human genome project used microscopes to look deep within us, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey uses telescopes to look toward the universe to discover our place.

The Sloan survey's results are as immense as the cosmos.

The main telescope, in the mountains of south- central New Mexico, is picking up light from 14 billion years ago--a time when the universe was just 6 percent of its current age. Focusing on one-quarter of the sky in what is known as the northern galactic hemisphere, the Sloan survey (www.sdss.org) has compiled enough data on the heavens in the last 36 months to fill 1,000 laptop computers, each with a 10 gigabyte hard drive, and it's just 35 percent of the way through its mission.

"This is what we call industrial astronomy," said Chris Stoughton, the head of data processing and distribution at Fermilab. "In the old days you'd take 10 pictures a night and write a paper" on the findings. "This was one-by-one, hand astronomy.

"Sloan produces 600 pictures through five different filters every hour. That's industrial astronomy, and enough to keep an astronomer busy for a year."

And while Sloan's work may not affect our daily lives, its discoveries are shaking up the world of astronomy. In addition to locating quasars at the beginning of time (about 15 billion years ago), Sloan scientists have identified new star structures that could alter how we view the galaxy and a new class of celestial objects called brown dwarfs.

Scientists from Fermilab and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York recently presented their findings on the discovery of new star structures in the halo of the Milky Way. Isolated from the 5 million stars logged so far by the Sloan study, the new stars appear to be clumped in a "puffier" configuration rather than what we're used to seeing as a flatter, spherical look of the galaxy.

Before the latest Sloan findings, the first and only "cool" brown dwarf star, which has properties of a planet and a star, was discovered in 1995. They're called "free floating" structures because they don't orbit a star or planet. The most recent discoveries are a mere 30 light-years away.

"They are still so new to astronomy that they require a new vocabulary," said astronomer Tom Geballe of the Gemini observatory in Hawaii. "The name `methane dwarf' has emerged, because of the dramatic presence of bands of methane in their spectra. Methane is characteristic of giant planets, like Jupiter, but it never appears in normal stars--they are much too hot--or even in most brown dwarfs."

World's most powerful camera

While there are many areas of interest to the non-astronomer or astrophysicist, the camera and the information it gathers are probably most interesting to the technologist.

The digital camera built for the Sloan Survey is the world's most powerful, according to Jim Gunn, professor of astrophysics at Princeton University, a Sloan project scientist and builder of the camera. The digital camera detects 7 out of 10 photons (particles of light without mass) hitting the lens, netting an efficiency approaching 70 percent. The efficiency of a standard film camera is about one-tenth of 1 percent, Gunn explained.

What makes the Sloan camera so efficient is its use of charge-coupled devices. These light-sensitive squares detect the intensity of incoming photons and convert light into digital signals. Each detector is rated at 4 megapixels, giving the 30-CCD array a whopping 120-megapixels (120 million pixels) sensitivity. The higher the number of pixels, the greater the resolution.

Gunn said the array of CCDs took four years to accumulate partially because of exacting specifications that meant as few as 1 of 3 CCDs shipped from the manufacturer were accepted. "They're very expensive and we have only a few spares," Gunn said.

The CCDs were half of the telescope's $5 million cost, paid for by the Japanese government's Monbukagakusho scholarship program. The entire survey will cost around $85 million, with the largest private donation of around $20 million coming from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Another $42 million came from Fermilab through the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. Other underwriters include Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, the University of Washington, New Mexico State University, the U.S. Naval Observatory and Germany's Max Planck Institutes.

The 700-pound camera, which took seven years to build, is a meter-long, vacuum-sealed cylinder cooled by liquid nitrogen to keep moisture out. In addition to the two mirrors found in a reflector telescope, two lenses focus incoming light to the 30 CCDs that make up the camera. Two spectrographs are mounted nearby.

A fifth of the CCDs are receptors for ultraviolet light, and another three-fifths captures green, red and near-infrared light. The remaining CCDs concentrate on getting what's called far-infrared light, and that's where amazing things happen.

That "far" category reaches back almost to the beginning of time.

Overall, the Sloan telescope picks up light from an immense number of galaxies and quasars, estimated by the astronomers at 100 million. They range in age from as young as two-tenths of the age of the universe to events that occurred just a billion years after the universe was formed and whose light is just now reaching the camera.

When a night of observation is over, the millions of bytes of data are written to 20 gigabyte data storage tapes in a protocol known as flexible image transport system. The findings of five CCDs are recorded on one tape.

Each tape and a backup copy are sent overnight to Fermilab, where they are transferred to a host of Linux servers. Stoughton said the amount of data is small compared with Fermilab's other projects but is the largest capacity project ever assembled in astronomy.

Most images go unseen

Surprisingly, with all the money and time spent in the quest for a road map of the celestial past, "most of the pictures have never been looked at," Stoughton said. Stoughton said that because of the immense amount of information seeing any part of it would take a lifetime.

Instead, investigators are writing programs to look for specifics like "low surface brightness galaxies," which could be described as wide--not bright--galaxies.

So with all the data that few have seen, and few practical business applications, it seems to raise the question as to why are they mapping the universe.

"It's hard to say why people should study astronomy," said Gunn. "But in the scheme of human intellect, it is important to know where we came from and what's likely to be in store for us."

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

wo0t. You're on a roll today, eh?

Kids that use sippy cups turn into incoherent mumbling adults.

Hogwash. Yes, they made huge contributions to political parties and candidates. But they hid debt in accounting entities. The poorly-formed accounting standards were and are there for any corporation to abuse. Nothing special was done by the government for Enron with regard to accounting standards.

Here's a link for you: Gramms regulated Enron, benefited from ties

The accounting rules that Enron got to exploit were created especialy for them - search for 'Enron exemption'.

Another link : Exemption Won in 1997 Set Stage for Enron Woes [NYT, registration]

It might make you feel better to rail on evil corporations or politicians, but the fact is, this abuse happens regardless of how much money is sent to politicians.

If you can back that up, I would be very interested in hearing more about it. I've always assumed the opposite.

Oh, and try to relax. Just because I don't currently share your view, doesn't mean I'm not interested in learning about your perspective.

A Linux section. I was pleasently suprised to see this linked to from the Dumb-ass^h^h^h^h^h^h^hShifman story. Some good stuff too.

For example, look at the dates on the articles in the Linux section... they went from every four weeks in 1999, to every six weeks, to all-but-never. Or consider their "Silicon Prairie" print magazine, which had a Ask The Linux Geeks column... until the whole project was dropped.

The unwritten corporate policy at Tribune is "No Linux". In some divisions, installing an unapproved operating system will get you fired, in others, you just get a stern talking to from the network people.

Here is the URL:

http://chicagotribune.com/business/printedition/ ch i-0201210012jan21.story

"Stupid pop-up ads," our hero muttered before leafing through another tale of wonder and disbelief.

Hmmm -- exactly what I was wondering when I arrive d at the Tribune web site.

I happened to read this article, as well as one in the Chicago Tribune this morning. While Comcast DID reach an agreement with @home, AT&T did *NOT*. AT&T will have most of their network up (using AT&T WorldNet) TODAY, and everyone else by the end of the week.

AT&T is flexing their virtual monopoly muscle by not coming to some sort of interim agreement with @home to temporarily continue providing service to its customers. Every other cable provider was able to reach some sort of agreement with @home. The New York Times reports that there are 850k AT&T customers without service. It upsets me that AT&T has the audacity to put 850k of its customers out of service. Apparently, AT&T thinks it can afford to lose 850k customers.

I live in AT&T's Chicago market and have been without service since Saturday morning. I got a message on my answering machine from AT&T that said I may be without service for about ten days. I have also heard estimates from other sources ranging from a week to a month. The Chicago Tribune has a related article about the 100k people affected in the Chicagoland area. Every person I know who has a cable modem is affected by this.

I've already been through two DSL bankruptcies (PhoenixDSL and NorthPoint). But, AT&T is forcing me to reconsider DSL once again. I can't get the same maximum speed out of DSL because of my distance from the CO, but I'm fed up with AT&T's handling of the situation. They obviously don't care enough about retaining their customers to have come to some sort of agreement with @home, like every other cable company did, to continue providing service until they were really ready to cut-over users to their new network. Can you imagine if AT&T would have done this with their wireless phone service? Since there is actually healthy competition in place, I'm sure AT&T would have lost a lot of customers...

Under the settlement, Microsoft will provide:

$150 million in cash to establish the foundation, and will seek $100 million in matching funds from other corporations and education groups.

$160 million in hardware and software support and

$25 million in online computer support

Up to $90 million to train up to three teachers in each participating school

Up to 200,000 refurbished computers each year, at a cost of about $200 to $500 per computer

Virtually unlimited copies of programs such as its Windows operating system and Office business software suite to participating schools, and more limited numbers of other titles.

Roger Kay, an analyst with IDC in Framingham, Mass., called the settlement "a huge victory" for Microsoft.

The settlement does nothing to curtail Microsoft's behavior, Kay said, while giving Microsoft an edge over competitors.

"It derails other companies like Apple and Dell -- even its own customers like Dell," Kay said. "It's amazing to me how favorable this is to Microsoft."

Microsoft said the settlement would not harm competition since educators could ask to use their funds for Apple or other rival products.

In 2000, Microsoft earned $7.3 billion on revenue of $25.3 billion.

Shares of Microsoft were up 1 cent to $66.55 in afternoon trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Okay, if we can't believe everything seen on CNN, what about

• The BBC .
• The Boston Globe
• The Chigago Tribune
• The Guardian (UK)

Also, don't forget the fact that some Palestinians kidnapped one of the cameramen that recorded the cheering, and the Palestinian Authority couldn't guarantee his safety if the footage was broadcast. Heard this on both The Jerusalem Post and also corroborated on NPR. Can't find a link to the stories, though.

North Carolina A&T, a small college in North Carolina, changed it's name to Jordan University for a day. This in response to sponsorship by the Jordan brand. Chicago Tribune Story

It is very likely civil liberties will be hedged for a short time. But now, the debate is on the front page of the newspaper rather than the techno-backwaters of Slashdot. People will notice the loss of their freedom. Up to now, freedom was being eroded and few noticed or cared.

I think that the short-term consequences, sadly, will include depriving U.S. citizens of civil liberties in the name of safety. But I think the long-term consequences are a heightened awareness of the balance and tension between security and liberty.

Well, I think Mr. Card apparently has had a bit of a change of heart...

While he clearly isn't reluctant to place some of the blame on America for it's role in creating this hostile reaction, he looks to be ready to enlist and join the fight:

"And I'm already weary of hearing the attack called `cowardly' and `terrorism.' It was a well-planned military strike, and it was carried out with courage and boldness. We face a brave and determined and clever enemy, and we are at war. `Cowardly terrorism' is dealt with by law enforcement agencies and the courts. Acts of war are dealt with by military force directed against our enemies and all who shelter them. And our enemies are not just the specific terrorists that carried out this attack, but all the terrorist groups that would have done it if they had had either the wit or the resources to do it. "We must wage concerted and relentless war against all the terrorists who have struck at America and its allies, and against all the nations that fund and harbor them, until there is no nation that dares to support terrorists. Anything less than such a war is a recipe for further attacks down the road. And if we do not plunge whole-heartedly into such a sustained and thorough war all at once, but instead escalate gradually, the war will take far longer and cost us far more in lives and other sacrifices.

"I designed it for a 707 to smash into it." --Les Robertson, World Trade Center structural engineer, as recently as last week

Mind you, a 767 full of transcontinental fuel is a mite bit heavier and more flammable than a 707. The support structures inside were rated for about three hours of regular fire heat, but jet fuel would start and sustain a hotter fire. An hour later, meltdown.

The second building, struck lower down than the first, crumbled faster, perhaps because there was more weight above the area being stressed. Or maybe the fire was more intense.

More detailed article: Engineers Seek Answers (Unfortunately, lacks dead-tree version's diagrams.)
And also, mainstream-press coverage of yesterday's internet meltdown: Internet Not Up to Need for News

More detailed article: Engineers Seek Answers (Unfortunately, lacks dead-tree version's diagrams.)
And also, mainstream-press coverage of yesterday's internet meltdown: Internet Not Up to Need for News

The first targets were clearly chosen to take out buildings that had as many people as possible in them, were world renowned, and were supposedly indestructable/impenatrable. (The WTC towers were actually designed to withstand having a jet flown directly into them. I bet whoever signed off on that was sure it would never happen)

So why then would Camp David, or any of the other theorized targets make any sense at all?

It seems rather obvious to me, especially from a systems design view, that the 4th plane was headed for the Pentagon as well. Full redundancy. Two targets, two attacks on each. Something is bound to get through. Everything else about this was clearly well planned, and if in fact some courageous passenger on the downed plane was responsible for saving the day, the attack was still succesful.

But of course, that's just more speculation to throw on top of the dogpile.

Story Links:
BBC
MSNBC
CNN
Chicago Tribune
Globe and Mail
Washington Times
Sydney Morning Herald
New Zealand Herald
LA Times


Picture Links:
BBC
Sydney Morning Herald

I got the link from:

http://HavenWorks.com/health/stem-cell/

It's a webliography of stem - cell news.

I've yet to see one news story cover this case that even goes so far as to mention the said act. And guess what? We never will.

• New York Times, 2001 Jul 18 and 2001 Jul 23
  
• Wired, 2001 Jul 25
  
• Yahoo!, echoing Reuters, 2001 Jul 25
  
• The Chicago Tribune, 2001 Aug 13
  

My point is, all this bellyaching -- "No one is paying attention" -- is simply not true. It's just an excuse to sit on one's behind and do nothing, because "the System" is allegedly ignoring the issue and "the people" allegedly don't care.

Fact is, people do care. Copyright law is arcane and obscure, so perhaps it's understandable that there aren't mass protests in the streets. Yet. But the allegation that the mainstream media is completely ignoring this is hooey.

Must really suck to be them! Many of them won't know about this ruling until they get home tonight because they don't have Internet access!

Check out this story in the Chicago Tribune about the state of their computers.

<BILL_AND_TED> Excellent! </BILL_AND_TED>

Y'know, I think that Jon Katz is actually Bob Greene in disguise.
--