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A few Airbus flights have had automatic rapid changes in altitude over the years causing all kinds of panic... things like this http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20080111/wEmergency11.html It's not the mouse, it's the computer system

The Challenge facing all legacy media is erosion of their revenues. What Papers need to recognize is there are many niche sevices like community callendars that ad value to customer's lives and will attract visitors to ad sponsored areas of a site. Where papers fall down is in driving traffic to new site features that cannot be replicated in a print version. Use the print medium to drive traffic to the electronic forum. The The Globe & Mail is a leading Canadian paper that offers comments on articles (albeit moderated) which adds depth and perspective to their stories.

Just because the NY Times, CNN, the LA Times, and the Washington Post dare to print something other than Undying Praise for the Fatherland does not make them left-leaning. It makes them journalists doing their jobs. I think the non-U.S. news coverage of the same events is more aggressive, such as the CBC, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the BBC. I take the truth as an average of these sources, along with some help from FAIR and the Columbia Journalism Review.

If I want left-leaning, I can go to the Independent Media Center, the Alternative News Network, The Raw Story, or the Fifth Estate.

Black roofs and roads have done their jobs well.
They absorb heat instead of reflecting it.
The stones in them also store the heat.

If little twigs sticking out of the snow speed up melting by 70% (http://globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050 915.wtundra0915/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/)
imagine wet roads.

Is there enough agricultural residue in Canada to support a commercial cellulose ethanol industry?
There are substantial quantities of straw and other crop residues already produced in Canada. In the Western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta alone, annual production of straw is about 40 million tonnes. If 1/3 of this material was used to make fuel, the nation could replace 10% of its gasoline usage.

So, Alberta alone can provide enough oil to power the equivalent of all of Canada's cars. But ALL the biomass of Canada's wheat belt can only produce 10% of the energy needed to power our transportation network? Yeah, they said 1/3, but that is about the amount of straw they can expect to not be moldy when they get around to picking it up off the fields. And how much of that 10% will be spent trucking otherwise worthless straw from outside Moose Jaw, Sask to the processing plant in Regina that I'm sure the socialist government of Saskatchewan will want to build?

And just when was Alberta separating from Canada? Oh, sorry, that was Newfoundland who was separating. Silly me.

-AD

Unfortunately, the article isn't available under their free registration process, and I'm too cheap to pay for an online paper when there's so much available for free.

Moreover, the web-posting of this article is clearly in violation of the Terms of the Globe and Mail site.

As we trust copyright laws to preserve the freedom of open-source software and the like, so should we respect copyright when the copyright holder doesn't wish to be so open. I think this story should be closed and removed.

Even rudimentary filters can make a huge difference to water quality in the developing world. Just 8 layers of sari cloth reduced cholera cases by HALF. And even the lowest-tech of high-tech filtration systems would improve on that. The other guy's right though, this isn't neccessarily "cheap".

Oh yes! I was asked to write a report on the history of 3D graphics accelerator cards. The fun part was tracing all the lawsuits between the different companies, the mergers, the companies dropping out of the market, companies popping back into the market (only to be shot out again). The Rambus/Infineon/Hitachi/Micron/Samsung never seemed to stop (As far as I can tell, they're still fighting it out. Lawsuits are still flying around like missiles in a game of "bzflag" with superflags. When the prize is worth $3 billion, it's not surprising nobody is going to give up.


During the overheated days of the late 1990s, the prospect that Rambus might hold a key patent involved in the memory used in 90 per cent of the world's personal computers lit a fuse under the stock price. It peaked at about $110 in 2000, after a licensing deal was signed with Hitachi. But it has been a much longer road than most investors thought, as Rambus has been tied up in one lawsuit after another. The stock bottomed out at about $3 a share in 2002.

After being sued by Micron in 2000, for example, Rambus countersued, claiming Micron had conspired with other memory makers such as Hynix and Infineon to keep the price of memory chips artificially high. That lawsuit is still working its way through the courts. Meanwhile, Rambus's legal battle with Infineon has also spawned suits aplenty. And the European Patent Office ruled earlier this month that Rambus's European patents are invalid, which could affect its case against other memory makers.

At the same time, however, Rambus won a victory in the Infineon case in October, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that found Rambus did not commit fraud when it failed to disclose its pending patent applications to the industry body setting the new memory standard. That decision effectively means that the company's original patent-infringement lawsuit against Infineon can go ahead.

Investors and analysts are hoping the FTC ruling (which could still be appealed) will give Rambus even more ammunition in its ongoing fight with Micron, Infineon, Hynix and others to win royalty and licensing fees. And how big a windfall might that bring? In the Infineon case alone, Rambus estimates that it is owed royalties of about $3-billion. That helps explain why a company that only has about $100-million in annual sales is worth in excess of $3.3 -billion. Whether Rambus will ever live up to that market value will be decided by the courts.

Eh? Perhaps you forget the case of racist journalist Doug Collins, who was fined for "hate speech". Or if that is too far back in the past for you, check out how the CRTC is requiring cable carriers to censor al-Jazeera over potential "hate speech". I'm sorry, we don't have the same freedom of speech that Americans do -- a hateful opinion there is protected free speech and here it is a crime. If that isn't enough, here is the law itself.

And I'm glad we have gun control laws -- I'm all for it. But you must realize this is a freedom that we do not have. Maybe you don't have a problem with this loss of freedom -- nor do I -- but that doesn't change the fact that Americans are more free in this regard. Freedom isn't always a good thing, if we were all completely free there would be anarchy and chaos, and very few people advocate that.

We are the 3rd best city in a world to live in according to this

and

only 89th most expensive one according to this

A recent Globe and Mail article features a favorable report on the turn around of Mozilla's bug trackers. Seems that Mozilla may also have plans to impliment an auto-update feature, or at least auto-notifications.

A recent Globe and Mail article features a favorable report on the turn around of Mozilla's bug trackers. Seems that Mozilla may also have plans to impliment an auto-update feature, or at least auto-notifications.

Why don't you argue with your own Senate: Iraq war based on faulty intelligence: U.S. Senate

Anybody with more details on this? Is this an Issue Of Significance, or is it no big deal?

Note to editors: It's not like you didn't have advance notice of this. It's not like this isn't a huge story. SpacesShipOne successfully lifted off over an hour before this previewed on the front page. Step lively!

In this MP3 clip on flash photography's effect on art, CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks interviews Dr. Tito Scaiano, professor of chemistry at the University of Ottawa.

Artefacts absorb light, and thus molecules. The molecules convert the energy to heat, but sometimes a molecule changes chemical structure, resulting in a visible change. When a photo is absorbed, it pushes the molecule to a higher energy state that breaks the bond. In other cases, it promotes oxidization. Organic pigments are more sensitive than inorganic pigments (which are already fairly oxidized). In other words, flash photography can lead to deterioration of an artefact, not to mention changes to the pigment.

Although aircraft may not be as sensitive as the Mona Lisa, it's still possible that flash photography could damage the artefact. An art student told me that his professor confided that one flash was equivalent to three days of natural light. I don't know if that's entirely true, but I've heard the warning repeated.

Although some people might not use flashes, even a small percentage of wrong-doers could eventually ruin an artefact. For example, when I saw the Mona Lisa, about 30% of the crowd was taking flash photos. The Mona Lisa is behind 3 inches of plexiglass, but the flashes do take their toll.

The Straight Dope also answers a question about flash photography's damage to art.

"Looney-leftist ESR" is like "the far-left Toronto Globe and Mail", that is they're tags which short-circuit rational thinking by invoking a preconcieved viewpoint in the reader/listener. It doesn't matter that they're not true.

Actually, the only issue I have with Strobel is that he pretends to take a certain critical approach and turns out not to be critical at all (i.e. if he were, he would have bothered interviewing people with intelligent counterarguments). You mention Lee as recommended reading, but you seem to retract his book. Of course to someone who already shares his conclusion, all of his arguments are highly convincing since they "confirm" what they already believe.

While evolution theory might or might not have its issues, I see no merit in resorting to primitive superstition based on a "big guy in the sky who made everything" theory. As far as I can see, most enthusiastic argumentation against evolution is from religious people, who can hardly be called unbiased.

A misunderstanding that you may have is that being a scientist does not equate being an atheist. Being a scientist myself, I was able to see for myself that enough scientists happen to be religious. Some of those probably don't believe in evolution at all, others believe in deistic evolution, etc.

If former beliefs are of any relevant, then on that basis, these guys and this one should be as convincing to you as your Strobel guy is intended to be to me.

Makes me wonder... if they do this on purpose, so they can hook you then make you come back to more.. Caffeine withdrawls suck, and if the home-made stuff isnt as potent, people are pretty much the slave of starbucks (or have to drink 2x more home-made coffee)...

In fact, a 20-ounce jumbo cup of house blend at Starbucks or Second Cup contains almost 400 milligrams of caffeine -- the upper limit of what Health Canada says an adult can consume healthily in a day.

* * *

"There are certain advantages to caffeine but, after 300 milligrams [daily intake], you start getting into health problems," Dr. Marcone said.

1. House of Bush, House of Saud: The secret relationship between the world's two most powerful dynasties by Craig Unger, 2004, Scribner. Available as a book and as excerpts on CD.
   
   The Bush family connection with the Saudis is also documented in a new movie by Michael Moore, due for release on July 4, 2004, called Fahrenheit 9/11. Michael Moore won an academy award for his movie " Bowling for Columbine", in spite of the sometimes poor quality of his reporting.
2. Crude Politics: How Bush's oil cronies hijacked the war on terrorism by Paul Sperry, 2003, WND Books, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
3. Worse than Watergate: The secret presidency of George W. Bush by John W. Dean, 2004, Little, Brown and Co., New York. Here are quotes from an NPR Interview of John Dean, which is available online (NPR is National Public Radio in the U.S.):
   
   "This is not a left-right issue. It's not a Republican, Democrat issue. I draw on as many Republicans who are critical of the secrecy of this presidency as I do Democrats." From the written introduction: "Reporters covering the White House of George W. Bush claim that the current administration is more pre-occupied with controlling information than any of his predecessors."
   
   More quotes from John Dean: "Bush is head of state and Cheney is head of government." George W. Bush is "frighteningly unsophisticated for a president of the United States". "I can't find anything that is comparable in history."
4. The Book on Bush: How George W. (mis)leads America by Eric Alterman and Mark Green, 2004. Available as a book and excerpts on CD.
5. Fraud: The strategy behind the Bush lies and why the media didn't tell you by Paul Waldman, 2004, Sourcebooks, Inc. Paul Waldman is the past associate director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and holds a Ph.D. in communications.
6. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, fortune, and the politics of deceit in the house of Bush by Kevin Phillips, 2004.
7. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind, 2004, Simon & Schuster. Available as a book and excerpts on CD.
8. Against All Enemies: Inside America's war on terror by Richard A. Clarke, 2004, Free Press. Available as a book and excerpts on cassette and CD. Mr. Clarke was the head of the U.S. government's anti-terrorism effort until he quit because of disagreement with the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Clarke had served under President Reagan, the former President Bush, and President Clinton.
9. Perfectly Legal: The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich -- and cheat everybody else by David Cay Johnston, 2003, Portfolio. Reviews: Powell's Barnes and Noble Amazon
   
   Mr. Johnston has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.
10. Supreme Injustice: How the high court hijacked election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz, 2001, Oxf

Sort of like how the Geneva Convention is quaint .

Wrong. A recent court ruling found that putting files into a shared direectory does not amount to copyright infringement. The real detail starts from about the fifth paragraph of the article, bit it's worth reading the whole thing. If you search you should be able to find other accounts of the same case.

Note that the article you link to talks about what "copyright regulators" think. What we are talking about here is a court ruling i.e. a primary source as to what the legal position actually is.

This is a myth. Here in Canada everyone, government included, was against the war, and we are not involved in Oil for Food.

You're the one who's propogating a myth. According to a CBC poll 65% of Canadians supported the war if it had gotten UN approval while 25% would still have supported the war if the US went in just with major allies. Even thought most Canadians didn't support the war, nearly 50% of Canadians had wanted Canada to support the US in the war. In Alberta, 56% wanted Canada to join the Coalition even without UN approval. As for the Canadian-Iraqi oil connection: Chretien's son-in-law, Andre Desmarais, is the biggest shareholder in Total Fina Elf, the French oil company that would have profited the most if there had been no war.

No, they cared about the eleven thousand people who are now dead who woulnd't be dead right now but for the war.

But they were perfectly OK with Saddam killing an average of 20,000 per year since he's been in power. (1 million Iraqis in the Iraq-Iran war. 30,000 Iraqis in the Kuwait invasion. 1 million Iraqis in Iraq killed off to maintain power his 20+ year grip on power). That figure doesn't even include the millions he's tortured. Over 6 million Iraqis fled their country and now live outside of Iraq. I didn't see any protests over those dead, tortured and displaced so "the _people_ of the world" should spare me the sanctamonious 'what about the children' type claptrap. Those protests were because people think America is too powerful. They could give a rat's ass about some dead Iraqis. I haven't seen any protests over the hundreds of thousands killed by Russia in Chechnya. Now, I'll grant you that Bush and company could give a rat's ass about the Iraqis either but in acting for the security of the US, they're doing what they mistakenly think is best for their country.

Those "pseudo-elected politicrats" were bribed and Saddam got what he paid for. Newspapers in foreign countries are totally devoid of any sort of factual reporting (if they ever had it in the first place). Take France as an example. The papers in that country are in bed with the politicians and each covers for the other. There were no reports about Saddam's atrocities and all the worst possible outcomes of the war and casualty figures were highly exaggerated. The French papers were also reporting that the US was indiscriminately killing massive numbers of civilians.

According to Gallup's poll of Iraqis, 71% think they will be better off now with Saddam gone. The people that think they will be worse off were probably the ones who benefited the most under Saddam. I'll trust the Iraqi's opinions about what's best for them over the rest of the world's.

I was born in Iran and now live in Vancouver.

Actually, it was the Globe and Mail - I read a bunch of papers and got the reference wrong. Ignalum Linux.

The references to CodeWeavers and Transgaming were on their website before it went south.

I would think the longer this drags on, the worse it is for SCO. They only have finite money (and some people already want that money back), eventualy they will be unable to finance continued litigation.

Linux, and OSS in general, does not seem to be suffering a significant (or even noticable) negative backlash from all of this, if anything it has been free publicity.

Be careful what you wish for -- the outgoing Conservative government here in Ontario left a nice fat deficit for the new Liberal government to clean up and had lied about the size of it for months before the election.

CBC writes: "...von Finckenstein wrote in his 28-page ruling."
The Globe and Mail writes: "In a 31-page decision, Judge Konrad von Finckenstein said..."
Hmmm... where are those 3 pages?

In the globe and mail story, they report that the judge declared that *both* copying and sharing are not copyright violation in Canada ... I've been assuming it was perfectly alright to download files in Canada (for personal use); now it appears to be equally ok to share them

see here where it is stated: "As part of his ruling, the judge found that simply downloading a song or having a file available on peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa doesn't constitute copyright infringement."

What's next in Canada? Free ponies?

I've been saying for a while in comments here on /. that leaving an open share (what the CRIA would refer to as uploading) would not necessarily constitute copyright infringement.

According to the Globe and Mail, the judge stated ""The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution"

This is a huge win for the Canadian public if it stands on appeal as Canadians will be legally able to download, and to have music available in shared directories, allowing both uploading and downloading.

Last I checked the only premier of Ontario to not totally lie through their teeth and misappropriate money to their friendly "sponsors" was almost thrown out for doing what they promised to [Mike Harris if you're wondering...].

Riiiiight. Clean as a whistle.

I do remember reading how under-water logging can do a lot of harm to an underwater ecosystem: if done improperly. Can't find the article any more but it talked about some individually raising fallen logs that sank before making it to a mill downstream. He scouted around and bought some vacation/cabin property where he knew a few accessible + valuable old-growth logs had sunk. And you guessed it: upon raising them the local fish stock collapsed and his neighbors got ticked.

The closest thing i could find on this is an article on sport fisherman opposed to submerged logging. Incidentally here's a more detailed article on the sawfish that was probably the source of the original post.

More here.

Mr. Soto's daily spamfest starts after he gets home from his $40,000-a-year job as a building supervisor at NYRE Management, a real-estate firm that runs Manhattan apartment buildings.

We're gonna get Ontario on the map one way or another. If it's not the biggest pot bust ever, then this SPAM thing should do it.

Or how about the classic example, the sign law in Quebec. NEVER trust the French. We've known it for years, its only now the Americans are catching on. I'll be damned if someone comes around my place telling me I'm breaking the law if I put a sign up thats not in French.

If it were that easy to abuse that law, $cientology would have had critics in jail years ago.

BBC isn't the only one:

Globe and Mail in Canada also speculates about "penguinistas" authoring MyDoom.

:w

Why might students not want their essays stored in a company database?

1. Good writers might fear that their ideas, or even their words, could be stolen (by all sorts of low-life: disgruntled/underpaid company members, malicious/political hackers, underpaid/jealous professors, ...).
2. Bad writers who are otherwise on a fast track to success might not want folks ever to see their bad writing. Imagine a presidential candidate who wrote total drivel in his undergraduate years ... how hard would it be for an opponent to get that drivel and publish it?

Sure, the company could claim the storage was secure against hackers, and they could claim that no employee would ever sell the essays, but any /.er knows that such claims would be hard to trust.

There are probably technological solutions to this problem, involving encryption keys. Folks on /. might have some good ideas on that. For example, how much would it cost, 30 years from now, for a presidential campaign to buy CPU time to break a key that is secure today?

PS. I noticed that the original posting had just one source, and so if folks would like to read more, they might like to check out the Globe and Mail newspaper website for more discussion, including of students' thoughts.

That's weird - simoniker slightly different headline but the rest of it is identical to the submitted post.

2004-01-14 21:33:38 It's Official: USA to the Moon and Mars by 2015 (articles,space) (rejected)

This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy, initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ. NASA Chief Scientist/Astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld will discuss U.S. Space Policy today at 5pm (ET) in an online chat. They want questions. More at NASA and the New York Times among others.

I know this comment may be somewhat OT but I had to add a comment. Anyone know what's going on with this? Maybe related to the many 500-class errors I've been getting lately?

--H

With a deficit approaching 500 BILLION dollars and a downed spacefleet I think the administration is jumping the gun to get the 'tech' vote. Let's not fall for this.

Sadly, the money wasted in Iraq could have funded these missions, stopped cutting needed services, and helped pave the way to some form of universal heathcare. Also note, Bush is reaching to immigrants this week with other sky-in-the-pie promises. Methinks people aren't so easily fooled anymore by Karl Rove's playbook.

"India produces as many as 1,000 movies each year with revenues of more than $1 billion." -- The Globe and Mail
This indicates revenue of a million a movie; that's a paltry sum which no American movie house would bother with.

"Bollywood's global annual revenues, estimated at $1.3 billion this year, are small change compared with Hollywood's $51 billion." --Business Week
This shoots down the other misdirection in the article. Sell all the tickets you want, Bollywood. You're still pulling less than 1/39th the cash that Hollywood takes in.

A lot of people watch these movies. I have seen a few. To a film, they were insipid. Do yourselves a favor and avoid the musicals at all costs.
But don't worry. They're not going to take over the film industry.

This story says the tip came from a family member.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20 031214.wtips1214/BNStory/Front/

Mideast 'intelligence' is 90% political. The GOP think that everything's connected while Howard Dean's supporters think that nothing's connected. It's incredibly hard to disprove any connection. Heck, with Stanley Millgram's six degrees of separation theory and the recent evidence it's probably easy to establish connections between former Iraqi government officials and the taliban. To make these kinds of conclusions based on 3rd hand media reports is difficult.

The bottom line is that someone who killed 300,000 people who disagreed with him politically amidst other horrible acts has been arrested.

All of humanity should be celebrating that.

I thought once a person or entity had a record or issue with court they were barred from receiving government contracts... That's funny.

By BARRIE McKENNA
Tuesday, December 2, 2003 - Page B10

WASHINGTON -- Tarnished by scandal and dwindling aircraft market share, Boeing Co. has accepted the resignation of long-time chairman and chief executive officer Phil Condit as part of a dramatic front-office management shakeup.

The abrupt departure yesterday of Mr. Condit, 62, comes amid allegations that the world's largest aircraft maker may have illegally exploited U.S. government connections to gain sealed bidding information from rival Airbus Industrie during a competition for a key Air Force order.

source

</arrogance>

For blaming it on us when the real blame should fall on your countries move to self-regulation of the energy industry.

You can also apologize in advance for this :P

Unless your buying into the gloom and doom from Krugman, you'll notice the economy is beginning to come around. 7.2% GDP, (some) job growth, unemployment down, productivity up. Companies are only now getting used to the growing economy, so it will be a while until job growth increases to what many people would like it to.

CISCO says it's stronger than ever, HP says it's profits have doubled... the tech buzz is back.

It looks like good news for Bush (and his tax cuts), and bad news for democrats.

Horrible USA tax laws have killed real research into synthetic fuels (coal based, shale oil, tar sand, etc...) in the USA. Basiclly you take normal coal, spray with diesel fuel and you have a "synthetic fuel" that gets a whopping huge tax break when sold. This is such a great scam that it makes no sense to do real research into synthetic fuels in the USA. See this article Coal Tax scam. Time Magazine did an in depth article on this issue recently.

The lady should have modified the scam a little bit, because it looks like the original scam was against Sympatico users in Canada. That explains the SIN. More reading

windside writes "Rex Murphy is reporting on the Canadian Prime Minister's website's use of its robots.txt file to disable search engines from crawling certain material. Many excluded items in the robots.txt file involve mentions of America, possibly to prevent people from finding out that taxes are much lower, that money is spent on government programs instead of on kick-ass jets for parliamentarians and that their senate actually does stuff." It seems Canadian officials could not be reached for because they were all busy taking bribes from their favourite soul-devouring oil company.

Note: Remember, Canadians may look nice, but we're mostly just as corrupt and evil as the Americans.

Globe article