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There are some pictures on this page. It seems that over 600 people died; or at least they recovered that many bodies. There may have been some who simply disappeared. There was a tidal wave which swept 150 feet inland (NOT 150 feet high, but that far away from the beach.). Since the ship was at the dock, it started fires in the town, and at a chemical plant near the docks. It set fire to another ship which was nearby. That ship blew up the next morning with even more force, and did even more damage. There are more pictures here and here, which give some idea of just how big ithe explosions were.

There are some pictures on this page. It seems that over 600 people died; or at least they recovered that many bodies. There may have been some who simply disappeared. There was a tidal wave which swept 150 feet inland (NOT 150 feet high, but that far away from the beach.). Since the ship was at the dock, it started fires in the town, and at a chemical plant near the docks. It set fire to another ship which was nearby. That ship blew up the next morning with even more force, and did even more damage. There are more pictures here and here, which give some idea of just how big ithe explosions were.

A ship blew up in the port. Oops.

Mr. Lampson is the congress-critter for the area around the Johnson Space Center, which is about to get hammered for inducing a $5 billion overrun on the International Space Station. The Houston Chronicle recently had an article stating that 4000 jobs were at risk at JSC (out of ~16,000 total). Lampson wants to be able to say that he tried to save jobs at JSC in order to bolster his re-election chances.

I'm heading for Krogers and buying me a life time supply of caffine and HoHo's!

Combating the horrors of Spunk Ball....
Fight balls with balls

Well, we did already have MacIntosh: Attack of the Clones; and we all know how that turned out :-)

UH researchers worked with very thin films of perovskite oxides called manganites. When these thin films are exposed to electrical pulses their resistance can be programmed. The researchers developed an electrical switching process so that the material could be used to store and retrieve bits of information.

Computer memory using the new technology would look essentially the same as the memory being used in today's computers, Ignatiev said.

"If you put them under a microscope, they would really look no different," Ignatiev said. "The difference is that traditional memory uses transistors and capacitors, and these use a resistor."

It will require only a slight modification to the design of the current generation of motherboards. An interface that reads high and low resistance would have to be installed.

Read the Forbes article on Greenpeace's founders ... I can only find a reference here in a non-wacko site. They have gotten rich and won't open themselves up to public accountability for the way the money is spent. I'd argue they are the least effective environmental organization of the big ones. I'm not a huge fan of Environmental Defense, but they are better. I think the Nature Conservancy is great.

Enron fell despite the fact that the govt tried their damned best to keep it propped up

No they didn't.

You can say the opposite until you're blue in the face but that doesn't make it true. The Bush government could have done a great deal more to help Enron but chose not to. That doesn't mean they didn't help them at all, clearly they did but the government clearly refused to bail out Enron. The government has bailed out companies in as much or worse trouble than Enron was in, such as LTCM previously mentioned. They chose not to do that for Enron.

I very much doubt Kenneth lay would agree with your assesment that he had "an extremely helpful government".

From what i've heard, Chris Carter had a very specific way, given the mythology and the way it developed, that he wanted to end it.

At some point within about a season of the point he originally wanted to end it, Fox said "no, you can't end, you're still making money", and demanded he keep going with the series.

If i remember right, i read this in the Houston Chronicle, but i can't remember exactly.

I seem to remember this being about the time that they moved the production to California from Canada. I seem to remember the point at which the series was originally meant to end being about the time that all the crucial personell on the show started bitching mercilessly and quitting, and about the point the writing seemed to lose direction utterly. (Although the episodes that first season in Los Angeles were generally excellent..) "Like butter scraped over too much bread.."

I don't know how true any of this is, but it seems pretty plausible. If so, i would definitely say that the x-files could have ended as a much, much stronger and more interesting show if they'd just let Carter conclude it the way he originally meant to.

As is i kind of stopped watching altogether at some point shortly after the massive two-episode thing with Mulder being locked in the train while all the people with no faces ran away, or whatever (i think that's when it was), and though i watched pretty religiously up until that point i have absolutely no idea what has been happening since then. I know nothing at all about the "mulder's replacement" character. I'm wondering if there's any point at all in trying to watch, given i may not understand the plot of the show anymore and given i don't have a television anymore.

Well, no matter. Even if the show did kind of sputter out and die ungracefully (This is the way the series ends, not with a bang but a whimper?) the X-files production team has produced more quality television than you could possibly expect of any single show, and i'm applauding them quietly for a job very well done. Hopefully i'll be able to go back and pick up some of those episodes i missed (and hopefully i'll be able to do this without resorting to gnutella or other Questionable Methods :) ). In particular i wanna know whatever the hell it was that i missed with that recent episode on the oil rig where they were chasing mulder, or whatever..

P.S. : is the "groundhog day" workalike episode available on tape or DVD? if it is, i'd buy a copy :)

There was once a company called unshredder.com which sold software for shredded document reassembly. They're gone now, and their domain name has been acquired by the Art of Hacking, which kept Unshredder's original blurb on its site (linked above). I'm sure the FBI and other forensic agencies have similar capabilities, so if they're not already working on reconstructing the Enron stuff, it's probably due to political corruption, though I'm hardly surprised. I found most of this stuff out while shopping for shredders a couple months ago--I ended up getting a Royal Orca CIA 12x at Office Max. See my review here if such things interest you.

I can't get too worked up about this... as long as the consumer knows when he buys a Microsoft TV product that it 'comes with' this kind of monitoring. That, to me, is the key -- full and open disclosure, and a consumer educated enough to know what that means.

Really, if you have a Yahoo 'home page' configured, you're already providing information about your preferences -- voluntarily -- albeit on a lesser scale then what MS TV will do.

If you use one of those 'shopper discount' grocery store cards, you're also providing this kind of information, in even greater detail. If you purchased a pregnancy test or jock-itch ointment last week, it's in a database somewhere if you use one of those cards, and the fact that they don't individually target you NOW for marketing based on this information doesn't mean they won't in the future.

From the above article: "...61 percent of retailers surveyed either have or plan to have frequent-shopper programs. Already, more than a quarter of all supermarket sales are tracked with the cards."

That shopper discount card sounds much like what MS TV plans:

"Scott Oddo, director of research at Predictive Networks, said the collected information does not connect viewers' interests to their names or other personally identifiable information."

So, do you have another source for the quote, or should we just take your word for it?

Sadly, no. I heard this on television last fall, from his lips (remember his daddy's famous quote?). He did say it -- I remember it because I thought it was an amazing statement from a candidate for the Presidency. But I don't have it on video tape. And I, too, have only found this one reference on the web. I've considered paying the Houston Chronicle's registration fee to search their archives, but that could be a waste of money -- who knows if they have it? I may break down and pay it anyway. Naturally, the Texas Governor's Office doesn't have it on their web site.

If anyone can provide another reference, I'd greatly appreciate it. But he did say it.

So, do you have another source for the quote, or should we just take your word for it?

Sadly, no. I heard this on television last fall, from his lips (remember his daddy's famous quote?). He did say it -- I remember it because I thought it was an amazing statement from a candidate for the Presidency. But I don't have it on video tape. And I, too, have only found this one reference on the web. I've considered paying the Houston Chronicle's registration fee to search their archives, but that could be a waste of money -- who knows if they have it? I may break down and pay it anyway. Naturally, the Texas Governor's Office doesn't have it on their web site.

If anyone can provide another reference, I'd greatly appreciate it. But he did say it.

"To be honest, it sounds like a marketing ploy the city of Houston has gotten caught up in," said Ray Quay, an assistant planning director for the city of Phoenix who has extensively studied relations between the Internet and local governments.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/101491 2

Houston already has access in libraries and schools, though the computers in the schools are generally not open to the public and those in the libraries are often crowded. However, the public library system insists that the computers in their libraries are to be used for research purposes only, and the librarians will enforce this policy when there's a queue. This makes me wonder if they talked to the mayor's office about this plan, because according to the Houston Chronicle all they're doing is installing software in those same crowded public libraries.

The General Accounting Office says a shuttle launch costs about $512 million. Or at least it did as of last autumn. There's a line about two-thirds through this Houston Chronicle article mentioning that cost.

The trem Pinko actually came from President Dick Nixon who, while as a senator, had accussed a certain communist sympathiser of beng a "Pink Lady" (Pink as in almost "red" i.e. communist). Thus the term "pinko", a shortened version of the insinuation.

Allow me to focus your first question a bit more precisely:

Alex: Why do suppose a website of techies, nearly all of whom abhor spam, would give a forum to one of the most notorious spammers of the late 1990s; an individual who once defended his relentless spamming of not only his own personal website, but also his bulk e-mailing on behalf of others, with the assertion that "I'm an environmentalist."

I only hope his answer is as thought-provoking as the question.

for 3 days

Um, check that article again. It's 3 hours.

Go do a Google search on China and human rights abuses. Or go read the State Department's report on human rights violations.Go read about how they've jailed four university professors in the past three months, including three with US citizenship or residency, for no crime greater than spreading ideas against the state. They also jailed for a month the husband and 5 year old son of one of the academics, failing to inform the US that they had done so, even though both of these people are US Citizens! (This is a major violation of international law.)

Read about how they brutally suppress religions, including everything from Falun Gong to Christianity. Read about what they've done in Tibet. Not expansionist? Read about how they backed the establishments of Communist governments in Korea and Vietnam, and how they want to take back Taiwan after 50 years of independence.

Read about the silencing of free speach in Hong Kong, the crushing of student demonstrators in Tienanmen square, the censorship of the Internet throughout China, the control and manipulation of public opinion through their state news agencies.

Go read all that, and then tell me that you welcome China.

Although I do notice both VA and TX are republican states also....

I guess you haven't heard of overclocking graphics cards. There are web pages devoted to it. Here are a few:

How to OC your video card
and
Another good one
and
Heatsinks for your video card
and
What to look for in an Overclockable video card Also, many times, overclocking involves increasing bus speed, ala 66Mhz to 100Mhz, etc. The fact that you said that alone tells me you don't know very much about overclocking. You might want to read up on the various facets of overclocking, you might look at your computer in a totally different way.
P.S. Why is it ok for people to perform a software upgrade to get a 33Mhz IDE bus to run at 66Mhz (vendor approved, yes I am talking about the BP6 bios upgrades) but its not ok for people to change a setting or two in their bios? I bet all the people bitching about overclockers would download and install a patch to get more performance out of their computers if it came from a vendor but they are reluctent to try something on their own.

SealBeater

What does that tell you? So Hispanics and Blacks aren't very interested in careers in the IT field.

What do you want to do, start discriminating against white people because they're the only ones who apparently get into the field?

despite being a high school dropout, I managed to work my way up to an engineering and IT administration position at one of the biggest airports in North America.

Great! If we look even remotely similar, we could pull a passport swap, and not have to worry about those nasty immigration procedures.

Yet, as a Slashdot contributor and reader, you're probably in the IT field, and probably quite affluent.

Apparently, our definitions of "progressive" are divergent at best.

Similarily, did that land belong to the Chicanos, or didn't it belong to the Mayans, Incans and Aztecs? You know, Hispanics are not native to Mexico. So, you're complaining that land that your people stole from the aboriginals only 300 years earlier has been stolen?

Heheh. I'd be grateful. I'm sure that you have far more opportunity in Texas than you would in Mexico. Based on US Border Patrol activities in that area, it seems that lots of other Chicanos feel differently from you.

Gimme a break. You spout sheer idiocy.

And you'd do well to get a realistic viewpoint and an understanding of world history.

BTW. 70% of people involved in this business vote Democratic.

Do you have a source for this statistic? Judging from the Houston Comical my experience says otherwise.

You can find George Will, William Safire, and William Buckley but not native Texan (and über-liberal) Molly Ivins.

It seems that the Comical doesn't mind effete Eastern intellectuals as long as they are conservative effete Eastern intellectuals!!! :->
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!

Additionally, I have been guilty of drunk driving on several occasions, again too many times to count. I have heretofore concealed these facts from the American people. That information was "need to know" and the American people just didn't need to know...

The American people? Hell, he didn't even think his own family had the need to know about one of his DUIs. (possible lame free reg blah blah blah)

And people actually think this man is trustworthy enough to run our country!?

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"

• A lot of people have written in regarding the announcement from scientists at the University of Texas @ Austin discovering "invisibilty". Well, sort of. What it does do is make small areas of skin (humans have not been tested) transparent for a short amount of time. By transparent, I mean 1/10 mm of transparency - not exactly enough to make me Inside Out Boy. Yet.

I don't know how they pick stories either. Maybe a shorter description?

Maybe they don't really try to get all the good stories because there's too many to look through?

The story was generated based on several presentations given at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The total number of new planets discovered is 10, including the double planet system of twin Saturn-sized planets.

The information was actually released to the various news agencies last week, but was under strict embargo until early this morning.

This brings the total number of extrasolar planets to 50.

Here're the original source links to this story:

• Geneva Extrasolar Planet Search
• Extrasolar Planet Search

And then coverage by news sources around the Internet:

• ABC News
• BBC News
• CNN Space
• Discovery.com
• Fox News
• MSNBC
• Space Chronicle

And of course, my own coverage on Universe Today.
Planet Discoveries Coming Fast and Furious - August 7, 2000

Fraser Cain

It looks like this story was leaked by Nasawatch/SpaceRef or Space.com prematurely. It was supposed to be embargoed until the International Astronomical Union actually made the announcement on Monday. Naughty naughty.

Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag now, so here's a list of all the sites covering the story in addition to Nasawatch/SpaceRef.

The news will get much better on Monday, when all us space news sites can actually post the real story and provide all the details. Stay tuned.

• BBC News
• CNN Space
• Discovery.com
• Space Chronicle

And of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:
Astronomers Discover Nearby Extrasolar Planet - August 4, 2000

Fraser Cain

This story was originally written as an Associate Press article, and all the major space news sites have AP feeds. So, you're likely to see exactly the same coverage anywhere you go.

Right now, everything is just rumour and speculation. In fact, NASA has flatly denied that the Pluto mission is cancelled. This reminds me about the recent discovery "lakes on Mars"... er "liquid water on Mars"... er "evidence that liquid water existed on Mars in the recent geologic past"

As always, here's a comprehensive list of all the coverage I could dig up. I warn you, though, it's all very "similar"... er "identical".

• CNN Space
• Discovery.com
• MSNBC
• Space Chronicle

And of course, my own coverage on Universe Today
NASA Costs Rise Significantly - August 4, 2000

Fraser Cain

Here's a list of all space news sites talking about this story. Compare and contrast the coverage.

And, of course, my own at Universe Today

June 30, 2000: MP3 Summit Ian at MP3 Summit webcast
You can find Ian's hour long talk at the MP3 Summit about 1 hour 8 minutes into the Wednesday webcast.

June 16, 2000: Guardian Free market fight for music moguls
Interesting article in a British national newspaper.

May 27, 2000: LA Weekly Genie 1, Bottle 0
Very amusing article on Freenet and copyright. Highly recommended.

May 24, 2000: Channel 4 News Hackers stay one step ahead
A very cool news item talking about recent attempts by the British government to censor the Internet and how Freenet will make this very difficult. Includes text and streaming video of the item.

May 23, 2000: Libération L'anarchie est au bout du clavier
An interesting French article about Freenet, concentrating on the freedom of information aspects of the system rather than just copyright.

May 12, 2000: National Post Napster secured page in Internet history
Interesting description of why Freenet is not vulnerable in the same way that Napster is, although I must say that their "final thought" is slightly perplexing!

May 12, 2000: O'Reilly Network Gnutella and Freenet represent true technological innovation
A nice article concentrating, for a change, on the technical side of Freenet and Gnutella. Reasonably accurate, although it understates the efficiency improvement that Freenet should provide (describing it as of comparable efficiency to the WWW where it should be much more efficient).

May 12, 2000: Het Nieuwsblad Vrijheid van downloaden
A Belgian article about Freenet.

May 10, 2000: Houston Chronicle Software developer pledges to foil all intellectual property watchdogs
A version of the article below, doesn't require that you register.

May 10, 2000: New York Times The Concept of Copyright Fights for Internet Survival
One of the better articles; concentrates on the copyright issue. Requires free registration.

April 27, 2000: PCFormat Daily FreeNet
A brief article on Freenet.

April 27, 2000: Heise News-Ticker World Wide Anarchy: Netz ohne Kontrolle
A German article on Freenet.

April 26, 2000: CNET.com Free, anonymous information on the anarchists' Net
Entertaining article with some nice quotes.

April 17, 2000: The Irish Times Anarchy Rules Alternative Web
A rather amusing article on Freenet.

April 16, 2000: Freshmeat Client As Server: The New Model
An interesting article discussing distributed systems and how systems like Freenet are actually in a similar spirit to the original Internet.

April 13, 2000: El País Freenet propone una red sin censuras, alternativa a la WWW
A Spanish article about Freenet.

April 10, 2000: Slashdot.org FreeNet's Ian Clarke Answers Privacy Questions
A very informative interview conducted by the readership of SlashDot.org, probably the closest thing to a FAQ, aside from our faq.

March 25, 2000: ABC News Freedom on the Net?
A rehash of the New Scientist article below, but likely to reach a much larger audience.

March 25, 2000: New Scientist Out of control
A "big bad Internet"-style article, but it is reasonably well researched and seeks the opinions of those who might be considered Freenet's opposition.

March 23, 2000: Heise.de Ein Netzwerk, das Zensur unmöglich machen soll
A German article on Freenet.

March 14, 2000: OLinux Freenet, a polemic concept to deal with WWW
An English translation of a Brazilian interview with Ian Clarke. Focuses on the technical aspects of Freenet, and goes into a reasonable amount of detail as to how the system works.

March 10, 2000: Webwereld Anoniem Freenet ultieme schuilplaats voor piraten
A Dutch article on Freenet. My Dutch is a little rusty but it looks like it is primarily inspired by the Wired article below.

March 8, 2000: no spoon FreeNet : le réseau anonyme distribué qui supplantera le Web
An excellent French article on Freenet, draws an interesting parallel between Freenet and the writings of Neal Stephenson.

March 3, 2000: Need To Know sufficiently advanced technology: the gathering
A brief but excellent article again approaching Freenet from a pro-freedom standpoint.

February 24, 2000: PigDog Journal Get in on the Ground Floor of Freedom
A very positive little article describing Freenet and why they think it is interesting using some rather "colorful" language.

August 14, 1999: Brave Gnu World FreeNET
One of the first articles about Freenet back when it was 100% theory. Still an excellent introduction to the way Freenet works.

Here I have a whole bunch of links to further information about wearable computers and "enhanced reality" for anyone interested:

• A Brief History Of Wearable Computing
• Affective Computing
• BBC News: Japan Eyes Wearable PC
• Charmed Technology
• CNET.com: 10 Technologies That Will Take Over - #8
• CNN: Excuse Me, Is That A Monitor On Your Head?
• CNN: MIT 'Cyborgs' Bridge Gap Between Man And Machine
• CNN: Turn On, Jack In, And Geek Out With Wearable PC
• CNN: Wearable Systems May Cut Labor, Save Time
• CNN: Xybernaut Now Has Linux For Wearable PCs
• CNN Poll: Do You Want A Wearable Computer?
• Computer For The 21st Century, The
• ComputerWorld: Wearable Computers - Digitally Attired
• Context-Aware Computing
• CTHEORY: Body Delirium
• DisplayWear Incorporated
• Extreme Computing
• Handykey, Inc. Wearable Computing Page
• Houston Chronicle: Future Phones Home, The
• ICBorg
• Intelligent Information Filters And Enhanced Reality, by Alexander Chislenko
• ISWC- International Symposium on Wearable Computers
• Marvin Elizondo's Wearable Computing Page
• MicroOptical
• MIT-IDEO Wearables Intro
• NetWork Fusion: Armani, Karan, Xybernaut? 02/01/999
• PBS: Scientific American Frontiers Transcripts - Inventing The Future (Aired Fall 1996)
• PC World News: Wearable PC To Debut At Comdex
• PopSci.com Headlines: CyberFashions
• Slashdot Articles: Wearable PCs Under Linux
• Smart Rooms
• TechWearable
• TekGear
• Wearable Computer
• Wearable Computing Intro Page
• Wearable Computing Portal
• Wearable Computing Resource Page
• WearableGear.com
• Wearables Central
• Wearables WebCrawler Search Engine
• Wearables Webring
• WearableTech Corp.
• Wired News: Annotated Reality
• Wired News: Intel Chips In On Future Devices
• Wired News: Waiting For Wearable Wearables
• Wraith Projects
• Xybernaut

Impossible means no one's done it yet.

A while back a couple sailed around the world and recorded their trip through the Houston Chronicle newspaper's web site. All the stuff is still up at the At Sea site and if you take a look at the FAQ I think you'll see they sent and recieved e-mail via Inmarsat-C satellite transmission. BTW I coded up the mapping from open-source tools -- gnuplot and perl :)

These were 20 lb tanks of propane (you know, the size of tanks that you use on a gas barbecue), with pipe bombs strapped to them, set up in the cafeteria (why they set them there, I don't know - the library would have been better, since that is where they WENT). I don't think they had a timer or anything on them - it was "light it and run" (though, once again, since they were committing suicide, why did they just leave them, unlit - and not kill themselves with the bombs?).

If anybody knows different, please reply to this. I think they figured they would come back and light the bombs, but never did (it makes me wonder why any of the kids didn't LOOK at the bombs after they left the area - if they were light and run devices, it would be easy to tell, if not, and they were on a timer, well - you and the neighborhood's ass is grass anyhow). They ended up in the library instead - and stayed there (for what reason - why there? - could they have gotten back to the bombs? Did they fear _living_ through a propane bomb explosion? I don't even think that is possible - the bombs would have leveled the building).

I tend to wonder about this scene - whether it occurs with school kids or a madman doesn't matter, but let's do a post-Columbine alternate history:

Two kids walk into school, each carrying two 20lb propane tanks strapped with multiple steel pipe bombs (to ensure penetration of the propane tanks - plastic pipe bombs might not have enough force). This gives four bombs. They each also have some small arms gun (9mm or something, with extra clips). They take the bombs to the most densely populated area of the school (or maybe they wait for a rally or something in an auditorium or something), set them down, stand back to back, telling anyone who comes near to back off or they will shoot them. They calmly light the fuses, then wait for the end.

This amount of explosive force would kill WAY more people than what Eric and Dylan were able to. I am sure that the killing of all the people were secondary to them killing themselves, because they had the means to kill MANY more people (and probably would've destroyed the school as well).

My point is I wonder when the object will become to kill as many people as possible, using easily built bombs made with common materials (similarly, I wonder why more OK City sized bombs haven't been done yet - they are easy and cheap to build from common materials, yet we have had only one bomb that size occur (excepting the accident in Texas City) so far. Why haven't more occurred since? Why haven't homemade fuel/air explosives been built and used?

I just find it amazing that we haven't had MORE large scale domestic bombings...

You might also want to see the Jim Oberg UPI story that started this brouhaha, and the followup with NASA's reaction ("whacko" -- although he does confirm the landing gear microswitch problem).

I apologize for the lame quality of these last two sites; I can't seem to find any good sites that carry UPI stories. I wonder why that is...

A regular character will die during the February sweeps. They don't say who. My guess would be Grandpa as they don't do much with him anymore.

Upcoming guests include Betty White, Stephen King, Britney Spears, and Kid Rock & Joe C.

I read it this morning in the dead-tree version of the Houston Chronicle. I found the online article so you can read it if you like.

A regular character will die during the February sweeps. They don't say who. My guess would be Grandpa as they don't do much with him anymore.

Upcoming guests include Betty White, Stephen King, Britney Spears, and Kid Rock & Joe C.

I read it this morning in the dead-tree version of the Houston Chronicle. I found the online article so you can read it if you like.

So, it's ok if government representatives kill those unimportant people.

Unimportant people:

• Vicky and Sammy Weaver, former residents of Ruby Ridge
• David Koresh and many of his followers in Waco
• Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder, all students at Kent State in 1970.
• Ezequiel Hernandez, killed while tending his goats on the Texas Border.

I'm sure there are many more, but I think the point is made.

I hope you're certain that you are important to the government.

According to the Houston Chronicle article here (free registration, blah, blah) there was no grade given for the story itself. Instead the "100" grade was a bonus grade given to students who volunteered to read their stories aloud in class.

According to the Houston Chronicle article here (free registration, blah, blah) there was no grade given for the story itself. Instead the "100" grade was a bonus grade given to students who volunteered to read their stories aloud in class.