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They are definitely wrong; 20 MHz really isn't any good for the type of bandwidth they want, unless they took a huge swath of spectrum.

It's an interesting band as well. I'd love to see how they deal with it during more active cycles. Your 1 MHz slice might suddenly propegate for a few hundred miles - not exactly the kind of frequency you want for cell-based coverage (unless that is their plan - to only use a couple of nodes per state for "384" divided by tens of thousands of customers. I've been working 17 MHz an increasing amount as the solar cycle begins to wake up a little bit - from the middle of the USA, I had a long PSK-31 contact in Pittsburg PA. It works when your protocol is 31 baud (remember 300 baud modems? or 1200? Yea... that slow). Sharing 1 MHz over a thousand mile radius when the band is open would truly demonstrate some fascinating issues (and you wanna talk about problems with hidden nodes or implementing polling mechanisms over a 1000 mile radius?).

I'm mostly surprised that there are still believers in the dot-com model. Capacity gets paid for regardless of how you fudge the numbers. Either you buy the backbone capacity to feed it or you don't - and towers, trunking, engineering, licensing, compliance all cost real money. Ask a Level3 exec if they ever considered giving free dialup to "pay" for their national fiber rollout and watch their reaction.

This seems more like a frequency givaway scam in search of an engineering solution than anything. Remember that Internet CP80 Port stuff that was so unworkable and absurd to anyone that actually understands anything about IP engineering? Our US house representative has indicated those people are still pushing and they claim their engineers have looked it over and haven't had a credible complaint about their proposal. (Note: The CP80 people haven't gone away and have enough Congressmen that actually think their proposal is a good idea - good time for some followup!)

And if the discussions of the bandwidth utilization were correct, I'm curious where all that higher capacity stuff will come from that is necessary to revenue-share with the FCC. Or is that going to be an oops after the frequency gets allocated - guess we didn't have any left to sell and share. Thanks for the free frequency givaway for a single company. Now there's a scheme I can believe. Just send your Senator a few thousand dollars and get it earmarked. One of our own Senators was kind enough to find $50 million for a rainforest in the middle of flyover USA for a couple thousand dollar donation, so anything's really possible.

The bill failed only because it was an issue that most felt should not be decided through legislation, but by the board of education.

"We should leave this up to the State Office of Education -- they've been tasked to do this, not us,"

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635188017,00 .html/

If something as complex as humans can evolve on their own, then how many years do we have to wait for something simple to evolve on it's own....Light bulb....telephone.....pencil....Microsoft Windows....Ice Cream.....Chocolate Milk.

I think Evolution is just too unbelievable. It is right up their with the Toothfairy and the Easter Bunny.

Professor Duane Jeffery, a professor of biology at Brigham Young University, estimates that "probably 90 percent of people who are LDS think the church is against evolution. But they don't get upset about it being taught in public schools." The reason, he says, is the church seminary system, which provides junior high and high school students with a class period of religious instruction during school hours. "Most parents feel their religion is being take care of in seminary," Jeffery says. Conservative gadfly Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum, sees it this way: "Utah's children, for the most part are taught by their parents that evolution is not correct science. The parents feel more control because they know they're teaching their children the truth at home." That truth, she says, is that "you are a child of God," a phrase that Mormons learn from the time they can talk, she says. "It's a year or two of learning about evolution vs. a lifetime of hearing that you are a child of God. Evolution just doesn't win out."

Yeah, because all the living surfaces already have ads on them.

Notice two other events tied to the Internet recently:

Ralph Yarro has a "Solution" to Internet Pr0n. It won't work but it will allow the darkside to take over and control every ip packet if congress can be corrupted.

And then, in conjunction with that, ICANN kills the Proposed XXX domain.

The ICANN action had to occur so that the darkside plan could take effect down the road.

Be very afraid of the loss of the Internet folks.

...from Deseret News here

That revolving door runs off tax dollars. Guess what? Illegal immigrants don't pay a dime in taxes (not even sales in NH) and he's having to spend an increasing amount of time dealing with them.

You're wrong.

Among other things, illegals contribute about $7 billion/year to Social Security that they'll never collect.

Cite.

Getting to the natural gas really isn't that hard anymore. Shell has done all the work already, and though I agree with you that moving to 'green' fuel is best, I also think is would be foolish to allow this stored energy potential to 'go to waste.' (I am thinking of many fuel sources, like the methane seeping from the thawing russian permafrost, etc...)

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600160643,00 .html it is an opinion on the fact... still an interesting read. (I know there are ecological implications, but the technology is there.)

for those who don't want to RTFA, it is crude oil and natural gas from oil shale, (1/3 NG 2/3 crude) at about 1 billion barrels a square mile. Energy cost/yield = 1/3.5 ...and the kicker, it is economically feasible at $30 a barrel of crude. (yup, close to $40 less than we are currently paying.)

Read with salt handy, this is all according to Shell. (but I find it interesting that an oil company would advertize that there are huge reserves available, before it has holding on them, and that it will only cost around $30 a barrel. Interesting at least, promising at best IMO.)

"Those large trucks on the Interstate that you see every day have a weight limit of about 65,000 lbs."

Here's a link http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600155076,00 .html to a story of an explosion caused when a semi overturned and caught fire in a canyon about 35 miles from my home. It occurred last Wednesday. The semi was hauling 38,000 lbs. of explosives. Not one person died! That stretch of highway is highly-travelled and pretty dangerous on its own without exploding vehicles. If you look at the images of the road, you'll likely agree that it's quite an amazing thing that no one died. Nearly the entire semi and trailer were gone. The explosion left a crater about 20 to 35 feet deep and 60 to 80 feet wide.

Here is another link http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_226191800.h tml to a Salt Lake TV station that received a video taken by someone travelling on the highway during the explosion. (The streaming video worked quite well on my Mac - Tiger & Safari - , so I'm pretty sure it'll work for most anyone)

I plan to give those truckers an even wider berth from now on.

• Hackers steal your phones to ring up bills
• New improved spyware tactics that behave like trojans
• Latest court rulings on hackers who use keyloggers
• Huge ID Theft Ring Affects at least 50 banks
  
  

This reminds me of the classic Dave Barry column describing a group of engineers who are tired of waiting for charcoal to ignite and heat to cooking temperature. The article ends, somewhat ominously, with

On Goble's Web site, you can see actual photographs and a video of Goble using a bucket attached to a 10-foot-long wooden handle to dump three gallons of liquid oxygen (Not Sold In Stores) onto a grill containing 60 pounds of charcoal and a lit cigarette for ignition. What follows is the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever seen, featuring a large fireball that, according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in this has to be a world record three seconds.

There's also a photo of what happened when Goble used the same technique on a flimsy little $2.88 discount-store grill. All that's left is a circle of charcoal with a few shreds of metal in it.

"Basically, the grill vaporized," Goble said. "We were thinking of returning it to the store for a refund."

Looking at Goble's video and photos, I became, as an American, all choked up with gratitude at the fact that I do not live anywhere near the engineers' picnic site.

Will the three-second barrier ever be broken? Will engineers come up with a new, more-powerful charcoal-lighting technology? It's something for all of us to ponder this summer as we sit outside, chewing our hamburgers, every now and then glancing in the direction of West Lafayette, Ind., looking for a mushroom cloud.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600136142,00 .html
This article mentions a 2nd alternator. This doesn't seem to be recognized by any of the comments so far. What effect could this have on the validity of their claims? Sounds like there is much contention here that existing alternator doesn't provide enough power for the design. Does a second one make the necessary difference?

How do you classify a riot that occurs because your favorite sports team won something? It's not as much "I'm protesting" as it is "I'm drunk".

Different news paper same type of content.
Deseret News Article

For the naysayers, it does say that it saves some 4 MPG over current ACs. IOW, it is more efficient.

it was done decades ago by philo farnsworth (who also invented the television)

it was even done by a college freshman a few years ago

this isn't news!

the REAL news is when we have a fusion device that releases more energy than it consumes

so until the slashdot editors catch the clueboat

"For the last few years, mentioning cold fusion around scientists has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings."

should read

"For the last few story dupes, mentioning old news about cold fusion around slashdotters has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings."

Remember, this is a case involving a self described gun nut who travels under assumed names

Bloomberg News
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names.

This is a case involving "suicides" of people who have disagreements with the SCO management team that even SCO supporters can't explain (DiDio calling it "shocking and mystifying" and even Enderle saying "Why commit suicide right after the settlement when the people you wanted gone are gone? The timing doesn't seem right, given that things were presumably going her way as far as the lawsuit was concerned".

Given the context, death isn't funny, even when talking about wicked witches like OGara.

I'm not defending the people who call her didiot, or call to harass her.

Please - I've lived there, and everything he said is spot on. Nothing like having your neighbors assume you're LDS, then ignore you when they give up trying to convert you. And that thinking is common, believe me. The church heirarchy(all males, usually white and elderly to avoid any progressive thought) states their position, and if you were to speak out against it you would find yourself in poor shape. It's the same idea as some of those Southern 'voter guides', which leave little doubt as to whom the proper political party or candidate it. I love how they just passed a gay marriage ban, yet turn the other cheek to the polygamist pedophiles in the southern part of Utah. Of course, the only reason they're not practicing it anymore is because they wanted statehood. (and it was a convenient time to get a 'revelation'). Check out some of the brilliant wisdom of the church leaders regarding families. Since every member gives 10% of their income to the church, that brain-dead socially irresponsible policy of littering the earth with offspring creates many 'happy' customers. So please, don't give us the 'we're mainstream Christians who value free thought' garbage, because nothing could be further from the truth. The policies a government puts forth are usually representative of the collective wisdom of it's members...

I guess once they got their high-speed net to all the city buildings and schools, their interest pretty much fizzled, leaving the city-zens still not quite on of the game... I still can't get DSL.

Erototoxins? Is this an attempt to re-brand a need for sexual stimulationas a medical condition again?

Could be. There's a group that wants to do MRIs to prove that pr0n damages the brain, according to this article. Dr. Reisman is mentioned in that article; she's talking about "erototoxins" there as well.

And, yes, that is where Ed Meese went off to, as per that Deseret News article.

(Oh, and the list of problems caused by pr0n should probably have included homosexuality - a lot of the stuff on Dr. Reisman's site goes on about homosexuality as well.)

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510054502,00 .html

It never seemed to me like it was actually fusion, but hey, whatever...

I live here in utah and have seen everything on utopia and i support it. you are not seeing all the facts. First it is 100mbit to 1gbit fiber home/bisnis respectivly, http://www.utopianet.org/technology/speed.htm for more info. second they are not just running it for internet services it will also have phone service, cable, video on demand, video phone service etc. second it is not 2,500$ per household that number auctuly varies from city to city http://www.utopianet.org/business_case/costs.htm for more info, total adverage cost is about 1171$ per house hold.

if you need more information hitup http://www.utopianet.org/

ps. their are company's leaping out for this just not in the way you though http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595054887,00 .html
=)

Even high-school freshmen can build a fusion reactor.

I sure hope that bookie specified over-parity fusion, or I am going to make some easy money.

However, I am Australian, and Qantas DID resort to advertising/marketing tricks. They didn't include "Olympics" in their advertisements (which would be against the rules), but they certainly implied that they were associated with the Olympics. Most marketers thought it was a stroke of advertising genius - they managed to get themselves associated with the Olympics (and all the goodwill that brings) without spending anywhere near as much as Ansett. Or sponsoring the games.

In particular, they bought a lot of television advertising so that when Aussies were winning medals, you'd be likely to hear the Qantas theme song immediately afterwards.

See: ABC
IP Rights
some other site

Qantas is an organisation like any other, they'll certainly stoop to tricks when it's in their best interest.

Instead of writing your senator, why not write to the media outlets? TV, radio and newspapers are more likely to get their voter base up in arms. Here are the links to the newspapers in Hatch's area: Salt Lake Trib
Deseret News

And he'd give it all up for a kiss from a girl :(...

Actually, this article from a few weeks ago mentions that Jennings is married. His wife actually helped him bone up on his trivia.

He explained to the 9-11 commission that his staying with the children in the classroom was to project a sense of "strength and calm". Make of that what you will, especially when you actually see the footage of him staying there. Strength and calm is not what I see on his face.

Here's something else most of us, unfortunately with hindsight blinding us, have forgotten about those crucial minutes after the second plane hit:

No one knew at the time that the ATTACK was over.

There could've been six other planes (ten planes was the original plan) getting ready to line up their sights with various targets around the country (including the very school Bush was having a photo-op that morning). Hell, there could've been all sorts of other terrorist acts, never mind airplane crashes, that would've been all tied to occur as close to 9AM Eastern that morning of Sept. 11. In those seven minutes, Bush could've been doing many many many things to set things in motion as a response.

He could've done all those things in as frantic a manner as possible; I don't care if he scared the entire classroom and left the children there crying scared out of their minds, but instead what we witness, as captured on videotape, is of a person that has absolutely no clue as to what to do.

Hell, I've gotten phone calls of my son throwing up in school, and even if I'm in a very important client meeting I don't wait seven minutes, let alone two, before I've excused myself and checked in on what's happening. Is it so preposterous to expect our president to do the same for the nation? Giuliani projected strength and calm while my city was under attack, yet you can bet he wasn't sitting stoned-face in order to do so.

My initial reply to this was a little on the flaming side so here I go again.....

I respect the fact that (I'm assuming here) you adhere to your religious beliefs. However, you have to remember that you live in a world populated by people who are not all Christians. We believe many different things.

When you refer to the 'media' as being officially ahtiestic, I have to wonder what you're talking about. I never see athiests in the news in a positive light. I can't even name one well-known living person who claims to be an athiest, except for the nutcase that took the state to court over the pledge.

Maybe the fact that the media attempts to be unbiased towards religion comes across to you as being athiestic. I really don't see this official athiesm in the media. If you're really interested in the religious bias in the media, you might be interested to know that the Washington Times (considered a more conservative media outlet) is owned by a cult leader. While most likely not your own religion, I don't think that makes the Times athiestic.

I'm not sure how you think religion is taboo in America. Religion (or the pretense of it) is absolutely required for a presidential candidate - why do you think that is? Because the established religion in the U.S. is..... Christianity! Name one politician who doesn't claim to believe in a higher power.

Meanwhile, Bush pushes faith-based charities for receiving government funding, "Under God" was added to the pledge in the 50's, "In God We Trust" was added to the dollar, we still say "So Help Me God" in the courtroom, Congress still prays before every meeting, televangelists are still on the airwaves, the Promisemakers still tour.

It seems you might be interpreting things wrong here, perhaps it looks that way from the pews. When you claim that you can't speak about religion outside of "an enviroment were it is expected" perhaps what's actually going on is that people expect you to respect their beliefs? Some people think that trying to push beliefs on someone else, especially in work or casual social settings is extremely rude and obnoxious. Maybe you see that and think that everyone is an athiest. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that you've had an actual conversation on this topic with the masses of people you're claiming are now suddenly athiests.

There is no way religion is taboo in America. Religion gave us all of our taboos. The Whipping of the Christ raked in millions of dollars. We have multitudes of churches, synagogues, mosques, cults and so many varieties of belief systems that it's dizzying. All existing in one country while peacefully coexisting. Ah.. that peacefully coexisting thing - yes there are some religious people who can't stand that and attempt to influence the media, government and public opinion. I guess the latest tactic is to appear as the underdog. You'll find that most people don't buy that.

You are very safe from Athiesm becoming the official "religion" of the United States.

I read here that SCO was seeking a 5 month trial delay. That makes sense to me. If my buddies and I were pulling down tons of cash, and salaried no less, by coming up with stupid ideas, like extorting money from big corporations, then I would want to keep drawing my salary as long as possible. Especially if our stupid extortion scheme was only pulling down about $11,000 every three months.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595048931,00 .html

http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=81082

decapitating our brave soldiers

What soldier?

If you must troll, at least do it right...

Right now the third largest employer of armed forces in Iraq (after the US and Britain)are private corporations I saw this statement in a news story the other day and it still strikes me as highly bizarre. What else would be number 3? The US and Britain are the only countries with any significant troop presence. You have to have a number 3 somewhere, were you expecting it to be "Iraqi gun nuts"?

Let me see...
...Spain, Australia, Poland, Bulgaria, Japan and Italy. The Czech Republic has some military police in Iraq.

My Source

How about we all chip in and finance this kid to improve on his bedroom nuclear fusion reactor, then truck it 100 miles down the road to Darl's place?

There are F-16s that have crashed in the lake. The military decided it was too expensive to recover them since they were destroyed anyway. So they let them sink in the mud (presumably they did). I imagine that there is other airplane junk in the lake too, being the flyover for a military base.

There are some interesting artifacts around the lake. Being a desert region seems to attract a number of artists that sees it as their canvas. It's where you see all the car commercials with the car zooming along in a vast desert expanse on white ground (the salt flats).

It's unfortunate, but we do not have an enviromentally conscious citzenry. All sorts of trash and junk. have been dumped out at the lake, just so they wouldn't have to pay a landfill fee or bother with it.

It's true that the lake does have an ecosystem, but not much of one, as it is very salty.

Also, the Salt Lake is not the swimmer's aquatic paradise. At one time it was considered to be. There was a large resort on the shore. Unfortunately it burned to the ground when some vagrants built a campfire on the wooden floor (smart, huh?).

The lake was so salty that you would indeed float like a cork. But because of a railway causeway across the lake, the south end (where everybody goes swimming) does not have enough salinity as the lake is fed by freshwater sources there.

The lake does not have any natural beaches, but rather mud flats for shoreline. Not like what you find at the ocean. There are some man made ones, and this is where you can go spend the day if you want.

But even if you do find a spot of sand to toss the blanket on, there are "brine flies", the other half of the lake's ecosystem. Imagine a hord of gnats that want to make you their business.

There is bacteria that thrive in this anaeoribic enviroment around the shoreline. The resulting byproduct of their efforts is hydrogen sulfide, or as we like to call it "lake stink". If the wind is just right, there is not a place in the valley that you can go to escape it. But that only happens occasionally, like before a rainstorm. I think the natives like myself have a fondness for it (since it only happens a couple times a year) as it reminds us that we live in a unique place. However, if you are down on the shore, there are days it is very bad.

After years of drought, the lake is at a low point right now. However in the mid-eighties, it was at the highest point ever. An interesting engineering feat (or more likely boondoggle) was the installation of massive pumps that are capable of pumping the lake in order to lower the level.

There are a number of mineral companies that remove salt, rare metals (magnesium), and other minerals from the lake.

However, until recently (last 15-20 years), there was not that much concern for the lake ecology. The thing that people did/do not realize is that like other resources, it is finite.

There was a time that nobody harvested brine shrimp eggs. Now there are a number of companies that have to be regulated so they do not remove the entire next generation of brine shrimp from the lake. Indications are that decades of removing minerals from the lake have depleted the salt flats. So much so, that the world famous Bonneville Speedway does not have enough rock hard salt to break speed records on anymore.

My favorite thing about the lake? Without a doubt it is Pink Floyd, an escapee from a local aviary. He's more predictable than the swallows at Capistrano. Every year he makes

There are F-16s that have crashed in the lake. The military decided it was too expensive to recover them since they were destroyed anyway. So they let them sink in the mud (presumably they did). I imagine that there is other airplane junk in the lake too, being the flyover for a military base.

There are some interesting artifacts around the lake. Being a desert region seems to attract a number of artists that sees it as their canvas. It's where you see all the car commercials with the car zooming along in a vast desert expanse on white ground (the salt flats).

It's unfortunate, but we do not have an enviromentally conscious citzenry. All sorts of trash and junk. have been dumped out at the lake, just so they wouldn't have to pay a landfill fee or bother with it.

It's true that the lake does have an ecosystem, but not much of one, as it is very salty.

Also, the Salt Lake is not the swimmer's aquatic paradise. At one time it was considered to be. There was a large resort on the shore. Unfortunately it burned to the ground when some vagrants built a campfire on the wooden floor (smart, huh?).

The lake was so salty that you would indeed float like a cork. But because of a railway causeway across the lake, the south end (where everybody goes swimming) does not have enough salinity as the lake is fed by freshwater sources there.

The lake does not have any natural beaches, but rather mud flats for shoreline. Not like what you find at the ocean. There are some man made ones, and this is where you can go spend the day if you want.

But even if you do find a spot of sand to toss the blanket on, there are "brine flies", the other half of the lake's ecosystem. Imagine a hord of gnats that want to make you their business.

There is bacteria that thrive in this anaeoribic enviroment around the shoreline. The resulting byproduct of their efforts is hydrogen sulfide, or as we like to call it "lake stink". If the wind is just right, there is not a place in the valley that you can go to escape it. But that only happens occasionally, like before a rainstorm. I think the natives like myself have a fondness for it (since it only happens a couple times a year) as it reminds us that we live in a unique place. However, if you are down on the shore, there are days it is very bad.

After years of drought, the lake is at a low point right now. However in the mid-eighties, it was at the highest point ever. An interesting engineering feat (or more likely boondoggle) was the installation of massive pumps that are capable of pumping the lake in order to lower the level.

There are a number of mineral companies that remove salt, rare metals (magnesium), and other minerals from the lake.

However, until recently (last 15-20 years), there was not that much concern for the lake ecology. The thing that people did/do not realize is that like other resources, it is finite.

There was a time that nobody harvested brine shrimp eggs. Now there are a number of companies that have to be regulated so they do not remove the entire next generation of brine shrimp from the lake. Indications are that decades of removing minerals from the lake have depleted the salt flats. So much so, that the world famous Bonneville Speedway does not have enough rock hard salt to break speed records on anymore.

My favorite thing about the lake? Without a doubt it is Pink Floyd, an escapee from a local aviary. He's more predictable than the swallows at Capistrano. Every year he makes

Good point. But there are some studies that suggest animals can count and do very simple arithmetic. This indicates (but does not prove) that counting is fundamental.

I'm reminded of the chinese room problem. Briefly, suppose chinese speakers can submit queries to an "oracle" who lives in a room; queries are submitted by writing them on a card and slipping them under the door. The "oracle" examines the symbols on the card, and without understanding the symbols, consults an arbitrarily large database of queries and responses. Each set of query symbols corresponds to a set of response symbols, which the "oracle" writes on a new card and slides back under the door. Thus, a chinese speaker could have a conversation in chinese with the "oracle" -- so can it be said that the oracle plus the database "understand" chinese?

In the same way we can examine the behaviour of an animal or an alien and conclude that their behavior is consistent with what we know of mathematics, even if their thought processes are obscure to us. Does that mean they "understand" math?

I would argue that, outwardly, if another species experiences the physical laws as we experience them (which is something we could observe), then we could understand their interpretations of those laws using mathematics, and probably communicate with them using the concepts of mathematics.

Any company worth it's salt knows that you at least keep your local press on your side:

City Weekly is a paper catering to the non-Mormon majority in Salt Lake, who see Lindon/Orem/Provo as a sureal Mormon enclave a million miles away. People joke that you need to get a visa to go there.

To Darl, the 'local press' is the Deseret News. Their slant can be seen here:

SCO Group now offering license outside the U.S.

Google and SCO hold talks

SCO sues Novell, claiming slander

Bear in mind, Novell is in Orem.

Any company worth it's salt knows that you at least keep your local press on your side:

City Weekly is a paper catering to the non-Mormon majority in Salt Lake, who see Lindon/Orem/Provo as a sureal Mormon enclave a million miles away. People joke that you need to get a visa to go there.

To Darl, the 'local press' is the Deseret News. Their slant can be seen here:

SCO Group now offering license outside the U.S.

Google and SCO hold talks

SCO sues Novell, claiming slander

Bear in mind, Novell is in Orem.

Any company worth it's salt knows that you at least keep your local press on your side:

City Weekly is a paper catering to the non-Mormon majority in Salt Lake, who see Lindon/Orem/Provo as a sureal Mormon enclave a million miles away. People joke that you need to get a visa to go there.

To Darl, the 'local press' is the Deseret News. Their slant can be seen here:

SCO Group now offering license outside the U.S.

Google and SCO hold talks

SCO sues Novell, claiming slander

Bear in mind, Novell is in Orem.

We'll never know what would have connected parts of the country (trains maybe), if not for this particular Federal program which was justified in the name of "National Defense." (i. e. when Russia decided to attack, everyone could use the highways in an orderly retreat from the cities, why do I think that's not what would have happened?).

The highway system is a form of public transportation which is paid for by my taxes. If I can't tell the government, "give me back my money, I don't want your highways," I should at least be able to tell them, "Switch some of the money you are wasting on highways to trains."

They are old white men who care about appeasing each other's financial interests and don't mind if all the geeks in the world want to rip their throats out. Plus, you have to remember that there's a good chance any random judge will have SCO or one of it's alliances somewhere in their investment portfolio.

So, at the risk of being redunant, here's the text of a message I posted a couple times, several MONTHS ago. This is not new information. Yet still, even now, most people have no idea about judge Kimball who is hearing the case. So here goes (again)....

On every SCO story, invariably someone posts a paranoid concern that perhaps a clueless judge will be assigned to the case, and rule in favor of SCO. These are often moderated to +5, which is quite silly since Judge Dale A. Kimball has already be assigned to the case, and we can see that he's got a reputation for being fair and capable of understanding cases involving technology.

Groklaw has very extensive research on Kimball's history, which is nicely summarized and easy to read. Every case has links to much more detail. The overall appearance is that Kimball will probably do the right thing.

Probably most important is the Jacobsen vs Hughes copyright case. Apart from considering much of the material uncopyrightable historical facts, Judge Kimball was quite unimpressed by the plaintif's failure to act in a timely manner to mitigate damages. Quoting from that article:

"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes."

Obviously this bodes quite well for IBM and all Linux users. SCO of course will claim they stopped distribution of linux, but this ruling at least shows that Judge Kimball isn't likely to be be charmed with the deplorable way SCO has conducted itself. Kimball's willingness to consider the writing a separate work, even though a part of it was loosely based on Jacobsen's also casts quite a shadow over SCO's chances (assuming the unlikely worst case scenario that SCO has an ace up its sleeve, rather than the bogus examples we've seen so far). It's certainly a good sign that Kimball is unlikely to buy SCO expansive theories about what constitutes a derivitive work.

While nothing is 100% certain going into the courtroom, it is a fact that the Judge Kimball has been selected to hear this case. His history shows he's competent, fair, and at least in Jacobsen vs Hughes, he doesn't tollerate the sort of shenanigans SCO has been pulling!

This one is more like 4 feet, unless Reed Christiansen is a very short.

Complete with a 24-inch, collapsible wingspan, the plane can be piloted by a computer with a GPS system, thanks to a computer board developed at BYU.

Complete with a 24-inch, collapsible wingspan, the plane can be piloted by a computer with a GPS system, thanks to a computer board developed at BYU.

As for the autopilot, these two pictures show what looks like an awfully standard transmitter. Perhaps they've created some sort of spiffy autopilot, but they don't appear to be using it here. But even autopilots aren't new -- people have been doing that for years too, from systems that just automatically right the plane as needed, to full fledged auto-pilots where you just tell the plane what to do on a computer. And here is something in between -- a plane that crossed the Atlantic, where people controlled it directly only for takeoff and landing.

In any event, even the planes themselves look pretty standard. This one looks like your basic flying wing (Zagi makes a very popular model) and this just looks like your basic small electric plane with a V-tail.

As for the autopilot, these two pictures show what looks like an awfully standard transmitter. Perhaps they've created some sort of spiffy autopilot, but they don't appear to be using it here. But even autopilots aren't new -- people have been doing that for years too, from systems that just automatically right the plane as needed, to full fledged auto-pilots where you just tell the plane what to do on a computer. And here is something in between -- a plane that crossed the Atlantic, where people controlled it directly only for takeoff and landing.

In any event, even the planes themselves look pretty standard. This one looks like your basic flying wing (Zagi makes a very popular model) and this just looks like your basic small electric plane with a V-tail.

Groklaw has very extensive research on Kimball's history, which is nicely summarized and easy to read. Every case has links to much more detail. The overall appearance is that Kimball will probably do the right thing.

Probably most important is the Jacobsen vs Hughes copyright case. Apart from considering much of the material uncopyrightable historical facts, Judge Kimball was quite unimpressed by the plaintif's failure to act in a timely manner to mitigate damages. Quoting from that article:

"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes."

Obviously this bodes quite well for IBM and all Linux users. SCO of course will claim they stopped distribution of linux, but this ruling at least shows that Judge Kimball isn't likely to be be charmed with the deplorable way SCO has conducted itself. Kimball's willingness to consider the writing a separate work, even though a part of it was loosely based on Jacobsen's also casts quite a shadow over SCO's chances (assuming the unlikely worst case scenario that SCO has an ace up its sleeve, rather than the bogus examples we've seen so far). It's certainly a good sign that Kimball is unlikely to buy SCO expansive theories about what constitutes a derivitive work.

The groklaw page has examples where Kimball has ruled against big business, where he's shown competence at handling software intellectual property disputes (eg, Altiris vs Symantec), and where he's handled very complex cases.

While nothing is 100% certain going into the courtroom, it is a fact that the Judge Kimball has been selected to hear this case. His history shows he's competent, fair, and at least in Jacobsen vs Hughes, he doesn't tollerate the sort of shenanigans SCO has been pulling!

(yes, -1 redundant... I posted this on the last SCO story.... but the "idiot judge" comments never seem to stop either!)

Groklaw has very extensive research on Kimball's history, which is nicely summarized and easy to read. Every case has links to much more detail. The overall appearance is that Kimball will probably do the right thing.

Probably most important is the Jacobsen vs Hughes copyright case. Apart from considering much of the material uncopyrightable historical facts, Judge Kimball was quite unimpressed by the plaintif's failure to act in a timely manner to mitigate damages. Quoting from that article:

"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes."

Obviously this bodes quite well for IBM and all Linux users. SCO of course will claim they stopped distribution of linux, but this ruling at least shows that Judge Kimball isn't likely to be be charmed with the deplorable way SCO has conducted itself. Kimball's willingness to consider the writing a separate work, even though a part of it was loosely based on Jacobsen's also casts quite a shadow over SCO's chances (assuming the unlikely worst case scenario that SCO has an ace up its sleeve, rather than the bogus examples we've seen so far). It's certainly a good sign that Kimball is unlikely to buy SCO expansive theories about what constitutes a derivitive work.

The groklaw page has examples where Kimball has ruled against big business, where he's shown competence at handling software intellectual property disputes (eg, Altiris vs Symantec), and where he's handled very complex cases.

While nothing is 100% certain going into the courtroom, it is a fact that the Judge Kimball has been selected to hear this case. His history shows he's competent, fair, and at least in Jacobsen vs Hughes, he doesn't tollerate the sort of shenanigans SCO has been pulling!